Fixed to a Star
by Lorata
Summary: Every tribute chosen in the Reaping of the 67th Hunger Games just 'happens' to be twelve years old. Claudius, the male Career volunteer from District Two, finds the moment he spent his entire life training for tainted as he's now forced into the role of the Capitol's executioner. Lyme, his mentor, refuses refuses to let her tribute go down as the villain. [COMPLETE]
1. Prologue: Coming Home

Notes: This story involves headcanon created by my friend azelmaroark and expanded on by the both of us. One of the amazing things about The Hunger Games is how much room there is for headcanon because Katniss' POV is so limited in her knowledge and introspection. This fandom is a great place to play around in, but even so, I find myself disagreeing with most portrayals of the Careers I've seen. Either they're straight-up monsters or they're misunderstood brainwashed woobie babies. My personal headcanon is that you can be murderer and victim both, and that this dichotomy is what makes the Careers so fascinating. This story is an exploration of that.

* * *

**Prologue: Coming Home**

He can't feel his feet. Claudius tries to curl his toes inside his boots, something to do with blood flow - that's what you do, right, your blood needs to keep moving and if it stops moving you die? - but he can't tell if they obey. He made a misstep earlier in the parking lot, stepped in what he thought was solid snow but turned out to be a half-frozen puddle, and the water soaked through his boots and socks. He stole the boots from an outside display when the first snow fell back in November, but it's near the end of January now and he tore the soles the time that a freak storm hit and he had to run down the mountain to avoid a rock slide.

It was almost fun in the summer. Not real fun, not super fun, but at least when the weather was nice it was easier. He could sleep under the stars and pretend he was camping, and lots of people left their back doors open to allow for a breeze - not too many bugs up in the mountains - so he could sneak in and crash on people's couches before they woke up. All he had to do to take a shower was sneak into a public pool, and there were fairs and festivals and it was easy to snatch food from open stalls.

Fall means school, which on one hand means having to sit and listen to things Claudius doesn't care about but has to memorize anyway, and kids who make fun of him for his shaggy hair and quickly-wearing clothes. But at the same time it means a place where he can stay for the whole morning, even in bad weather, and nobody asks him what he's doing or where his parents are. At lunch Claudius weaves his way through the classrooms and the yards, asking other kids if they're going to finish that sandwich or do they want that apple, and once he has one thing for free he can trade up for something better, and he usually manages to be full enough by the time it's two o'clock and time to go to the Centre. Nobody ever wants to drink their milk, and Claudius usually gets at least a carton of that without even having to give them something.

Next year he'll get the first strand of his bracelet. Next year he'll be able to start taking other people's lunches if they won't give them to him.

Fall also means apple season, good, crisp apples just hanging from trees. Claudius memorized where all the trees were before the fruit finished ripening, and by the time the apples were round and red and ready to pick, he'd worked out a routine for how to get enough without ever picking too much from one tree at a time. He heard at the Centre that apples have good things like fibre and vitamins and other things that Claudius doesn't know but that kids should be eating. A lot of the houses at the edge of town grow gardens, and so he steals things like potatoes, beans, carrots, and other things he doesn't have to cook. Once he steals a small pumpkin and eats it raw.

Claudius did a pretty good job of living on his own for months, but now it's the dead of winter. Vendors don't sell things on the streets anymore; people lock their doors and seal up all the cracks to keep the cold out, and unfortunately that means it keeps Claudius away, too. The cold seeps into his bones and never seems to leave.

He coughs, and it's wet and rattling in his chest, and once he starts coughing it's really hard to stop. Claudius bends over double, his hands over his mouth, and finally something wet and slimy and salty works its way loose from his throat. He spits it out with relief, because now he's safe for a little while.

It's the weekend, and Claudius is at the playground because there are usually other kids there, playing on the swings and jumping into the snow, or dragging sleds up the small man-made hill. Sometimes if Claudius asks nice they let him have a turn. He sticks to himself, close enough to groups of other kids that people might think he's with them, but not so close that the kids themselves start asking him what he's doing there. Except that his chest has really been hurting the last few days, and if he tries to run he coughs, and his fingers are so cold it's hard to move them.

One of the kids peels off his mittens and tosses them on the snow so he can pack a snowball without it sticking to his hands. His mom scolds him - "Well don't come crying to me when your fingers freeze!" - but turns away to talk to her friend. They're both holding cardboard cups filled with something hot, steaming in the cold air. The kids keep playing.

Claudius edges closer. The mittens are _right there_, and they're big and chunky and Claudius pretends to trip in the snow and then he has them, and his heart thumps and he's terrified someone will notice and so he edges away from the other kids and then he runs. He doesn't get very far before his lungs give out but he has mittens and it will be okay. It takes him five minutes to get them on over his numbed, cramping fingers.

He's figured out a system to sleep, at least. There's an all-night diner in an okay part of town, not one of the ones where people run around sticking knives into other people but also not where it's clean and shiny and people panic if there's a newspaper on the ground and Peacekeepers carry homeless guys to jail, and Claudius curls up behind it next to the dumpster with a garbage bag. There's a vent connected to the kitchen that blows hot air from the oven, and it keeps him warm enough until morning when the garbage trucks wake him and warn him it's time to run and head for school.

Claudius doesn't remember much of what happens at school the next day. His head hurts, he's prickly and itchy and everything aches, and his eyes feel like they're made out of scratchy wool and somebody's shoved a spiky hairbrush down his throat. He's too hot in his sweater but if he takes it off he starts to shiver.

"Uh-oh honey," says his teacher, and she pushes his hair out of his eyes and presses the back of her hand to his forehead. Her fingers are cool, and Claudius whimpers and has to stop himself from leaning in to the touch. "We should call your parents, have them take you home."

"No," Claudius says, and he forces himself to sit up. "No it's okay. She's at work. I'm going to the Centre after lunch. I'll go to Medical there."

"Well, all right," she says, because nobody messes with the Centre. "Still, I'm going to send you to the nurse's office. You stay there and sleep until it's time." Claudius tries to argue with her but it must not have worked because the next thing he remembers is white sheets.

"I think we should call your parents," says the nurse when Claudius sits up, bleary and dizzy. "You shouldn't go to the Centre like that, you need rest."

Claudius closes his eyes and gives the room five seconds to stop spinning. He grips the edge of the cot and wills himself to steady, and when he puts his feet down on the floor nothing tilts underneath him. "I'm much better now," he says. "It's okay. I'll go back to class, and I'll tell Mom when she comes to pick me up that you said to take me home."

"All right," the nurse says. Claudius smiles at her until he's out of the office, and then he's staggering through the halls to his locker. He grabs his stolen coat, boots, and mittens, shoves himself into them, and stumbles outside. It's still early, but he doesn't think he can walk to the Centre in time if he stays until two.

He's fine, really, after that. The Centre is warm but not too warm, and they're afraid of infections with so many kids in the building so the air is filtered or something, and Claudius does feel better. He drinks from the water fountain until one of the other kids gets impatient and shoves him, and that helps, too. He's fine.

He's fine until they're playing dodgeball, and he has the ball in his hands and it's heavy, way too heavy for something filled with air, and there are kids running and yelling and their shoes squeak against the floor and there's more yelling, yelling at him, someone yelling his name, and he's holding the ball but he can't remember what he's supposed to do with it, and then this time everything does tip over.

White sheets again. Always white. Claudius doesn't like white. They should really change the colours. The sheets are white and the bed is soft and there are things taped to his hands and his arm and voices in the background but at least nobody's yelling and nobody sounds like Her.

" - shouldn't be contagious, but his immune system -"

" - how long do you think -"

" - minor case of frostbite -"

" - insane, how could we have missed -"

" - mother, shouldn't he be -"

"No!" Claudius screams, and his throat is dry and scratchy but he can't, they can't. "Not there! You can't take me there!"

The voices stop. "Can't take you where?" someone asks. "Where don't you want to go?"

"Back _there_," Claudius rasps, and he knows the word is 'home' but it's not home and it sticks in his throat. "With her. She wouldn't take me anyway. She changed the locks and she said if I tried to break in she'd send me to the Home. The one for the bad kids. Where they know how to treat kids like me." He tries to curl in on himself but there are tubes and things attached to him and he can't, so he turns his face into the pillow. "It's not her fault. I set her plants on fire. She was mad."

"When?" asks the voice again, and it's a lady, a nice lady with a soft voice. She sits next to him and strokes his hair. "When did she change the locks?"

"August," Claudius says to the pillow, his eyes screwed shut. Somewhere above him, a few people make sharp hissing noises, and somebody walks away real fast, their heels hard on the floor. "Don't make me go back. Please."

There's a pause, a quick discussion that Claudius can't understand because his head hurts too much. "You're staying right here," says the lady, and this time her voice is a little harder but it doesn't sound like she's mad at him and that's okay. That's okay. "You're going to stay here and get some sleep."

"Okay," Claudius says, and the sobs that have been building up in his chest and threatening to explode out of his face go away.

"Sleep," she says, and she pets his hair until he does.

They make him stay in bed for days, and Claudius doesn't know what's in the tubes or anything but he sleeps a lot and doesn't even care. He has some crazy dreams at first and wakes up screaming, but once he tells the doctors they put something else into his medicine and the nightmares stop.

Every morning, when the doctor comes to check on him, Claudius asks, "Are you sending me back?"

Every morning, the doctor says, "No."

After a few days they give him actual food to eat, not just the stuff in the IV. Claudius knows it's just hospital food and it doesn't actually taste good, but after months and months of stealing things and going hungry until his stomach growls and tries to eat itself, the soup and wobbly coloured dessert stuff tastes like the best thing he's ever eaten.

One day when Claudius blinks himself awake, it's not the doctor sitting on the chair next to the bed. The last of the tubes are gone now and Claudius is feeling less like somebody tried to make him into floor tiles. "Hi," he says. He recognizes her as a trainer but doesn't know her name.

"Good morning," she says. "Are you feeling better?"

"Yes," Claudius says immediately, because if a trainer asks that question you start doing jumping jacks, but hopefully since he's actually in Medical and until now had stuff stuck in him maybe he'll get a pass. He watches her to make sure, because one sign she thinks he's faking and he's out of here.

"The doctors say you're looking a lot better," she says, which is good. Claudius didn't want to say anything, but he was afraid that maybe the sick had gotten into his lungs for good and maybe he wouldn't be able to train anymore. He has no idea what he'd do if that happened but he knows it's not good. "They've decided it's all right for you to move out of the infirmary."

It takes Claudius a second to realize that 'infirmary' means 'Medical', and when he gets it he has to fight down a wave of fear. Medical - the infirmary - isn't the best place to try to sleep, there are bigger kids with nasty injuries in the other beds, and everything is white and smells so clean it stings his nose, but it's better than the snow, and just because they aren't sending him back to Her doesn't mean he'll like wherever it is he's going.

"Breathe," the trainer says, and Claudius gasps for air. "Tell me what's wrong."

"If I'm not staying here, where am I going?" he asks, and he digs his fingers into the mattress, twisting them in the sheets. He wants to tell her that they promised, but it doesn't seem like a good idea.

"We're looking for someone to take you," she says, and Claudius almost laughs but it's easy to turn it into a cough instead. Nobody is going to take him. She said so. The only people who will take him is the home for the bad kids, and that's just because there's a law that says so. "In the meantime, would you like to have a nicer bed than here?"

Claudius frowns. "What do you mean?"

"We're giving you a room in residential until we find somebody for you," she says, and Claudius opens his eyes wide. "It won't be a big room, and there are no toys in it."

"It's okay," he says immediately. "Really, it's okay. Are you sure? I really get to stay here?"

"Not forever," she says, and Claudius does his best not to let the disappointment show. "This isn't somewhere for kids your age to live. But you need somewhere to stay for now, and at least you can have your own room instead of being here."

It's better than nothing, and if they give him his own room while they're looking then eventually they'll see that Claudius is right. Nobody wants him, no one will take him, and then maybe they'll finally understand that. Maybe if Claudius is really good, really quiet, and doesn't disturb anybody, they'll just let him stay in residential anyway. Thirteen isn't that far away. That's only - he counts on his fingers - six years.

"I've already signed you out at the desk, so we can go now if you're okay to walk," she says, and she smiles when Claudius throws off the blankets and scrambles to his feet. "Here, it's a little colder in the hallways, so take this."

She gives him a sweater. It's not a Centre sweater - they don't have those as part of their training uniforms - and it's not white or cream or any of the other standard colours. It's red and blue in stripes and it's made of warm, soft yarn that doesn't itch Claudius' fingers when he touches it. He looks up at her, confused.

"My son outgrew it last year," she tells him. "You can keep it."

"Did you make it?" Claudius asks as he pulls it over his head, and she chuckles.

"Definitely not, that's not something I'm good at." She tugs the sleeves down over his hands and adjusts the hem. "There you go. Come with me and I'll show you where you're staying."

Claudius has never seen the living quarters before. The little kids stay in a completely different part of the Centre and aren't even allowed in the building. He tries to look mature and like he isn't dying of excitement, but that's hard when his heart is running like they just made him do laps and his legs are a little shaky from being in bed for so long.

She leads him down an empty hallway - the other kids are in training, Claudius guesses - to a room at the very end, and after swiping a card key against the lock, opens the door and lets him in. It's small enough that the bed touches three of the walls, and the only other furniture is a small table and a dresser, but Claudius bounces on his heels anyway. This is _residential_. He bets no kid under thirteen has ever been here.

The trainer is watching him, and Claudius catches himself and tries to stand still. "I really get to stay here?" he asks, trying to shove down his excitement. He's learned that sometimes when you really, really want something, it gets taken away from you. Sometimes it's better to hold back.

"Until we find you someplace better."

Claudius wraps his arms around himself, letting his fingers run over the soft material of his sweater. "Can't I just stay here then? There isn't anywhere better. Not for somebody like me."

She puts a hand on his shoulder. "Let's get some lunch, and then we can talk about what you mean."

On the way to the cafeteria, she tells him that her name is Laverna, and she's worked at the Centre for over ten years. Claudius counts on his fingers again, and that means that more than one of the kids she saw in training in the 7-9 group like him have gone into the Games. He wonders what that's like, if any of them were victors, but he doesn't think so. _She_ didn't let him watch the Games because she said it would give him ideas, but he thinks he would remember if a Two won anyway.

"We need to get you back up to weight," Laverna says, and she hands Claudius a sandwich that he needs both hands to lift. He stares at it in awe. "While you're eating, why don't we talk about what you said."

Claudius shrugs, though it's difficult with his elbows on the table and his hands full of sandwich. He's trying to use good manners, but it's hard to remember because the sandwich tastes amazing and he doesn't think he's ever eaten one so good. "You're not gonna find anybody," he says, and his shoulders hunch a little but he tries not to let it get to him. "My mom said so. Everybody wants nice, cute kids, and I'm not nice and I'm not cute and when I'm mad I hurt people. She said -"

And yikes, Claudius must still be full of medicine that makes his brain loopy, because normally he knows not to say that. He shoves his mouth full of sandwich and pretends he didn't say anything at all.

Laverna isn't stupid. She waits until he swallows, and then she reaches out and puts her hand on his arm so he can't take another bite. "Tell me what she said."

Claudius sucks in a breath. His heart pounds again, and his whole body feels all trembly. "She said I'm a monster," he says, and he can't look at her. He knows that part is true. Nice boys don't set things on fire. "She said - she said only other monsters would take me. And that's why she sent me here."

Laverna doesn't say anything for a second, and when Claudius finally looks up, she's pressed her lips into a thin line. "Do you believe that?"

Claudius shakes his head so hard he gets dizzy. "Not about you! You're not monsters. You help kids like me. But she was right, other people wouldn't understand me. She doesn't understand me. I don't want to hurt people _all_ the time, it's just when I get mad I do. I get mad and then I hurt people." He frowns. He remembers the interview with the recruiter who came to the house, how mad _she_ was that she couldn't sit in the room with them to make sure he answered right. "I told this to that other guy, um, Ravel? It's in my file."

"I've seen the file, but I still want to talk to you," Laverna says, and Claudius doesn't like reading either and would much rather talk to people so that makes sense. "What if we did find you somewhere? Would you want to go?"

Claudius sinks back down into his chair, kicking at the table leg. "You won't."

"Humour me," she says, and when Claudius frowns, she apologizes. "That means, just pretend for a minute that you believe me. What would you say?"

Claudius clenches his jaw. "When you said you'd take me, they told her she would get money every month. She said she didn't want the money, she just wanted me out of the house. She yells at Jeremy all the time for not making enough because the house has a - a something." It starts with an m, he knows the word if he hears it but he can't remember it. "A mora-something. They need the money. But when I tried to come home she said if she took the money she'd have to take me and they would find another way." He looks away. "Maybe you could find somebody if you paid them more money, I guess."

Laverna shakes her head. "Someone who'd take you for real."

Claudius scowls. He can't help it. "Sure, but I still want to come here. You understand me and there's lots of kids like me and I don't have to - to hide. Or pretend to be good just so somebody will like me." Laverna nods, slowly. "Like, you're not scared of me, right? She was scared. She said anybody would be scared but you're not. That's all I want."

"So, when we find you someone, you still want to stay in the Program?"

"Yes!" Claudius sits up straight. Without thinking he closes his fingers over his wrist, the one where he'll have his bracelet once he finishes his first year. "Yes, I want to stay. I want to stay and train and learn how to be strong and when I'm old enough I'm going to go into the Games and I'm going to win."

Laverna gives him a small smile. "That's thinking very far ahead. For now, why don't I just show you the exercise room? You need to start getting your strength back after being sick."

Three months, four foster families, and two group homes later, Claudius drops to his knees in front of the rehoming committee. "Please," he begs, and he's crying and he knows that Careers don't cry, not even the big kids when they break a bone, but he can't help it. He can't.

At the last group home they asked him how many places he'd been, and another kid laughed at him and said what did he expect, he's ugly and mean and no one will ever want him, not even the killers or they wouldn't keep sending him away, and when they finally pulled Claudius off him his face was a mass of red and white.

"I'll do anything," Claudius begs. "I promise. I'll live in a closet. I'll clean the floors. Just don't send me away again - please."

He cries so hard he has to brace himself with his hands against the floor, and his chest aches and his stomach heaves and he thinks he's going to throw up. He cries until he feels a hand on his shoulder, and he looks up to see Laverna kneeling next to him. "C'mon," she says. "Let's get you to your room."

Claudius gasps when she opens the door. "This isn't mine," he says, heart hammering. And it is his room, that is it's the same door in the same part of the hall, but this room has a soft, red blanket and lots of pillows on the bed, enough that he could make them into a pile and sit and feel warm and cozy. The dresser drawers are open just enough to see that there are clothes in them, not just training uniforms but actual clothes, so he could finally go to school and not get teased. The blue-white bulb in the ceiling light has been changed to something softer, orangey, that glows instead of glares.

"It's not mine," he says. There's a box of things on the table by the bed and his fingers itch to go look in it.

"It is," Laverna says. "The trainers donated some things. You're seven, not thirteen, and there's nowhere else for you to go. If you're going to stay here, you might as well make it home for now."

In that moment, Claudius knows that the Centre is his saviour, and there will only ever be one way to pay them back. Calm soaks through him as though someone cut a hole in his head and slowly poured ice water into it.

One day, Claudius will graduate and become a volunteer. He'll take everything the Centre has given him and show them - show all of Panem - it wasn't a waste. One day, either he will win for them, bring home the crown and the victory and everything, or he'll die doing his best to bring honour and pride to the Centre and District Two.

"Thank you," he says. "I won't let you down. I promise."

"Don't worry about that right now," Laverna tells him. "You just do your best during training and that's all that matters."

"I will," Claudius says. He's never been more sure of anything in his life.

Laverna stays with him, to get him used to living at the Centre. She takes him to school in the mornings and picks him up in the afternoons; escorts him to meals outside of the main times, right at the end of her shift before everyone else eats, so he won't be in the cafeteria with a bunch of angry seventeens. She shows him all over the compound, including the big room with the huge TV where the trainees watch and analyze the Games, the library with all the grownup books but also a whole shelf about the history of Panem in big letters with lots of pictures. She takes him to watch the 10-12 group with weapons training after the 7-9s are finished for the day, and Claudius isn't allowed to join them or touch anything but he can watch and ask questions and she answers him. She tells him to come to her if he has any problems.

Claudius knows it's wrong, but he can't stop wondering if this is what it's like to have a mom.

A few weeks in, Laverna stays late and takes him to the cafeteria while the older kids are eating. "They'll need to get used to seeing you eventually," she tells him, and Claudius swallows hard but holds himself up straight. "I'll wait here while you get your food."

He knows it's a test, to see how he handles being surrounded by thirteens and fourteens and fifteens and sixteens - not the Seniors, they're kept separate from everyone else - and if he starts crying. He's not going to panic. Claudius waits in line like he's not half the size of the next kid in front of him and lets the lady fill his try.

He's almost back to his table when a bigger kid - one of the fourteens at least, he has two red beads on his bracelet and Claudius knows what that means - gets in Claudius' way. "I've heard of you," he says, crossing his arms. "You're the kid so crazy not even the homes will take you."

Claudius narrows his eyes. He knows what _she_ would want him to say - "excuse me", or "please let me through" - but this isn't her house, this is the Centre. "You're in my way," he says. He's careful not to make it snotty, just a statement, because it is.

"Is it true, though? That your parents didn't want you _and_ all the foster homes didn't want you _and _the orphanages too? That's some deep shit right there."

Claudius wonders if they resent him because he's an exception, and the Centre almost never makes those. His breathing quickens, not because he's scared, but because Laverna is watching, and this might not have started out as a real test but it sure is now. If he makes the wrong answer they might send him away again. The Centre is letting him live here, sure, but that's only as long as he's good enough to stay in the Program.

Claudius looks up at the boy and keeps his face calm. "You've got a red bead," he says, which is clear enough. _You've killed people_. He's not supposed to know that, not at seven, but it's impossible to live here early and not pick up stuff. Anyway, it's a good thing. Whatever the rumour mill says Claudius has done, it won't be anywhere near as bad as what that kid did to earn that bead.

"Yeah," he says, and he leans down, getting in Claudius' face while still looming over him, and Claudius hates big kids sometimes. He thinks of the big kids in the orphanage and how they thought they were so great just because they were taller. When Claudius is taller he won't be like that. He'll be nice to the littler kids, at least until they stop deserving it. "And you know what? _My_ Ma cried when I left for residential. I heard yours paid the Centre to take you away. You might think you're hot shit just because you're here early, but you know what that means? It just means you're so fucked up nobody wants you, and that makes you more fucked up than everybody else here already. By the time you get out of here, they're gonna have to put you down."

Claudius drops his tray and lashes out before he's finished thinking, feeling the crunch of bone under his fist. The boy falls - nobody ever expects a seven-year-old to fight them really, just like she didn't expect him to pick the lock on her bedroom door and stand by her bed with a knife asking _why'd you lock me out mom, are you scared of something mom_, just like the Home people didn't think he would hit back when they brought out the belt, and they're all just stupid, stupid, _stupid_ -

"That's enough, Claudius," says Laverna, and Claudius freezes instantly at the command. He blinks, and there's blood on his hands and on his teeth and the bigger boy is moaning on the floor and Claudius isn't sorry, he isn't sorry at all. He knows what dangerous injuries look like, and this isn't one of them. A couple of days and he'll be fine.

"Ha," says another boy, and he has three orange beads but no red ones which means he's still thirteen, animals but no people yet. "Man, I was gonna get on Dart's case for thinking picking on a seven makes him a big man, but uh, I think he got the message." He flings an arm around Claudius' shoulders, and Claudius is still tense from the fight but this kid, at least, doesn't look like he means trouble. He gives Claudius a friendly smile with a dash of wicked in it. "You're all right. Welcome to the club, kid."

Two of the sixteens get Dart up between them, his arms around their shoulders, and start dragging him away to the infirmary. Claudius looks around, wary, to see if anyone is going to turn on him next, but they all seem to think the boy got what he deserved.

Laverna winks at him, then picks up her tray and takes it to the counter. "See you at training," she says to Claudius, and he realizes with a jolt that she's decided he's all right, that he doesn't need a handler anymore.

For a second Claudius is tempted to burst into tears or something just to convince her to stay, but the urge passes. The whole point of the Centre is that things change; the trainees grow, move on. They're supposed to be loyal to the Centre, not to specific people in it.

It's time to grow up. Claudius turns back to the new boy. "So what do you guys do for fun?"

* * *

Note: Next chapter, we skip forward 10 years.


	2. Chapter 1: The Reaping

**Chapter 1: The Reaping: Things fall apart, they fall apart so hard**

The flashbulbs are still in his eyes, bright spots dancing in the corner of his vision; his blood sings and his pulse races and Claudius is terrified and eager and a million things altogether and they never told him he'd want to vomit and laugh and run at the same time. It was a fucking great Reaping, as they go; he pulled a twelve-year-old to step in for, which is about the best thing a Career can hope for, that moment of contrast from the tiny, shivering piece of meat dressed in its best clothes, to the tall, beautiful Volunteer who steps in to take its place. The screens always show the parents' faces in split-screen as the Volunteer mounts the stairs, and they look up shiny-eyed with hands clasped in gratitude. This year the mother of the kid Claudius is saving was close enough to the barricade that she actually caught his sleeve and choked out 'thank you'.

Claudius didn't look at her - never look, never acknowledge, it's not the tribute who's the saviour it's the Centre, the District, the Capitol for allowing this to happen, _you're just the mouthpiece, the tool, remember that_ - but he felt her gratitude pressing upon him like the summer sun, warming him straight through to his bones.

He was a little annoyed when next up Nikita got a twelve, too - it cheapens it, takes a little bit of the awe away from his, makes it look staged - but it's bound to happen some year or another, and anyway he forgets as soon as they're up on stage together. Nikita is gorgeous, dripping deadliness and sex appeal, and the beads on her bracelet stand out like gems against her dark wrist, but Claudius can beat her. Not that he's stupid - he knows Nikita is standing next to him thinking the exact same thing, that she's spent the last three days calculating his specific weaknesses, thinking of all the times she's seen him sparring - but he is confident. The bracelet on his wrist has eleven strands, all black, and he has fewer red beads than the others in his year because it took fewer tries for him to convince them he could handle it.

Claudius is one of the only ones his year who made it out of his Field Exam standing. He's never been able to put on the weight like Brutus or Nero but he's fast and strong, like a cobra, and he knows how to twist out from under even the heaviest boys in training. He can do this. He's known since he was seven years old.

You're never ready, no one is, especially not Careers - Careers know more going in than the meat, they have expectations and while with expectation comes readiness there's also dread, curling and waiting in the dark, and if you think you're ready then you're fooling yourself and you need to go back for another test or two - but Claudius thinks he's as close to it as anyone ever could be.

They lead him through into the Justice Building. His bracelet sits on his wrist, heavy and reassuring, reminding him of all the years he's trained for this. Nikita walks close beside him, her movements silent and steady, and the smoky scent of the oil they used to treat her hair sticks in his nose but he ignores it. The Capitol perfumes will be worse, much worse, and Claudius isn't pretty - his face is too sharp, his eyes a bit too hard - and so that means they'll spend more time making him so.

He waits in the small room with the hard bench for the family he has no more connection to and that he doubts will even come, and that's when he sees it. Lyme and some of the other mentors, huddled in a group, passing a piece of paper back and forth between them, and Claudius lets out a sharp breath as the door closes because he knows he was never meant to see that.

He saw fear.

It could be a test, a way to see how easy it is to shake him, but Claudius doesn't think so. He knows what fear looks like because he's seen it, on the people he's killed in training when they realize they're not getting out of this; on himself, in the mirror the morning after they placed the final gold bead in his hand and announced him the Capitol's next and greatest sacrifice. It does takes him a minute to recognize it because he's never seen it on the mentors before, not like this.

Of course, he could be imagining it, and honestly, that's probably it. Claudius isn't so confident as to think he wouldn't get attacked by nerves and start seeing things, though it doesn't say very much about him that it's already starting. Well, never mind. It just means he's gotten over psyching himself out early, and now he can shake himself off and move on.

He needs to push it out of his mind, and Claudius is the top of his class and so he does, lets out several long breaths and imagines the twisting in his gut like a length of snarled yarn that he works out and unkinks between his fingers. Soon the yarn is smooth and his stomach settled, and Claudius doesn't jump when the doorknob turns, only raises an eyebrow.

The eyebrow creeps up higher when he sees the woman who gave birth to him, the one who stopped being 'mom' some time around when Claudius was five and that morning bloodied the face of a boy who tried to steal his favourite truck - only about the twentieth such incident and not one of the ones where the other went to the hospital - when he heard her whispering to no-longer-dad that she wanted this _thing_ out of her house, that at least this way someone could get use out of him and she wouldn't have to worry about sleeping with her door locked inside her own house, Jeremy!

Claudius has so many things he could say but he doesn't, because it doesn't matter. None of it does. This woman isn't his family. She may have contributed to his genes, and he can thank her for his too-sharp nose and the cruel twist of his smile, thank her husband for his dark grey eyes, but that's all he's willing to give them. Everything he is, everything, he clawed from nothing himself because the Centre gave him the strength to do it. The Centre is his family, not these strangers.

Certainly not the woman with the red-rimmed eyes and the handkerchief pressed to her face, which doesn't even mesh with his memories. Claudius gives her a long, stony look, which is more consideration than he's owed her, and is more out of his own disbelief than anything else. He knows what he heard. He remembers her fingers digging into his shoulders as she stood with him in the recruitment centre, the sharp hiss of relief when they said they'd take him.

He remembers returning home after the first day at the Centre, only to find that she'd changed the locks.

"Look at you, all grown up," says the stranger, and Claudius keeps his stare cool. He doesn't hate her. He feels nothing. He hasn't seen her since he was seven, when he became the youngest trainee ever to live in the dorms because he'd be going home to the woods or a cave in the mountains if they didn't give him a room. "Do you remember me?"

Claudius says nothing. He thinks of Foster, a bright-eyed, smiling thirteen who didn't make it past his kill test, but who wrapped an arm around Claudius and asked him why a runt like him was in the dorms with the big kids after hours.

"My folks are scared of me," Claudius said, sticking his nose in the air, and Foster laughed and punched him in the arm and said he'd do all right. Foster disappeared the next year but Claudius still cares more about what happened to him after he quit the Program than the family he left behind long before the doors closed at his back.

"Of course you remember me," she says, and her voice goes a little hard. "You're just acting tough, I can see that. Oh, baby, I never thought you'd actually make it this far."

Whatever that's supposed to mean. Claudius rolls his eyes in his head, and he thinks about teenaged arms around his throat and fingers mussing up his hair and sneaking him a knife in training to see if he knew what to do with it.

"I'm proud of you," she says, and that is just rich, isn't it. "Here, I know you're allowed to take a token into the Arena with you, right? So I'd like you to take this."

He's taller than she is now by a good foot and a half, almost, and Claudius allows himself to look down. She's holding a small box in her hand, and Snow only knows what could be in it - a bracelet, a necklace, a pin, a piece of her goddamn placenta, whatever - but he doesn't reach out to take it. She tries to press it into his hand but he leaves his fingers flat and it drops to the ground.

"What's the matter?" she asks, her voice going shrill, and Claudius remembers that, all right. He knows that tone, and somewhere inside him a five-year-old quivers and tries to make himself very, very small in the alcove under the stairs, but that little boy is all grown up now and curls his lip instead.

"I have a token," he says, the first words she's heard him speak since he was seven years old, and Claudius wonders what he sounds like to her. He trained his lisp out himself by getting Daniel, a fourteen, to slap him every time he did it. He holds up his wrist, even though just letting her get this close to the bracelet feels like a defilement of it, and he lets her get a good, long look at it before dropping his arm.

Her mouth thins. "You were always ungrateful," she snaps, and that didn't take long now did it. "Even as a little boy, you never appreciated what I did for you, the sacrifices I made, and now this! You won't even give a mother the satisfaction of saying goodbye to her son."

Claudius thinks, very deliberately, of his first broken bone in training, a spiral fracture after he mouthed off to one of the bigger boys, who held him down with a knee in his back twisted Claudius' arm up between his shoulder blades until the bone gave. He remembers Laverna, his favourite trainer, taking him to Medical and sitting with him on the bench. "You need to cry?" she asked, sympathetic, and even then Claudius knew it was a test.

"No," he said, blinking fast, but you're allowed to do that. "I need to learn how to break that hold for next time."

"Good," she said, squeezing his good shoulder. "Once you're given the all-clear, find me and I'll teach you."

After the ceremony proclaiming him as Volunteer, Claudius found Laverna in the common room, and while he knew intellectually that she was ten years older now than in his memories, she still looked exactly the same to him. "Thanks," he said. "For the time I broke my arm. For everything." His heart hammered with the incredible stupidity of the statement, she taught over a hundred kids in the seven-to-nine group every year, that's more than a thousand kids between then and now, why would she ever remember -

But then she smiled at him with something else behind her eyes that Claudius couldn't quite figure out, squeezed him on the shoulder just like she did before, and said, "Knew you'd do great things."

He thinks of holding the piece of paper with his name on it and a bunch of official-speak, staring at the signature on the bottom-left corner in the space allotted for mentor: Lyme's name, written in broad, firm strokes. He remembers tracing the swirl of ink with his finger; the warm glow in his chest when he thought of her looking at the list of candidates and _choosing_ him, wanting him, vowing to give up a month of her life for him even if all he does is die, and years afterward if he doesn't. He slept with the paper under his pillow like he was seven years old with his acceptance letter all over again.

Claudius always wanted Lyme. Back when he was ten and they all played the 'which mentor would you want' game, before they all had blood on their hands and the game became too real, no longer about personality matches or who was hottest but actual percentages and scores, Claudius said he would pick Lyme. The others laughed at him, teased him for having mommy issues, but Claudius knocked them down and they never said it again. When he saw her standing there at the selection ceremony he actually forgot how to breathe.

Ungrateful. Yeah, sure, that's what his problem is.

He realizes she's still talking, and Claudius almost laughs now because he honestly doesn't care what she's saying. Not like when he was seven and curled up on the dorm bed made for a thirteen-year-old and pretending he didn't, not like when the other kids his age went home after the little-kid training and Claudius went to watch the older ones spar with weapons and pretended he wasn't at least three feet too small. And he can admit that weakness now because he really, truly doesn't care, not anymore.

"I think your three minutes are up," he says, because through it all Claudius has been counting the seconds in his head. Her nostrils flare, but just then the door opens and Claudius gives her a snake's smile.

After she goes, Claudius waits, but of course there's no one else. He wonders, with the idlest of curiosity, if she was looking to appease her guilty conscience or if she's angling for a spot in the house in the Victor's Village, but those are thoughts for later - or never - and so he pushes them aside.

The box is still on the floor. Claudius considers stepping on it or nudging it under the bench with his foot, but in the end he just leaves it alone. Let the janitors sweep it up and toss it out.

Claudius stands in the Justice Building for over an hour; there is a place for him to sit, but he doesn't want to just in case there are cameras, in case they're watching him, and so he forces himself to stand, hands clasped behind his back, not even giving himself permission to tap his finger against the back of his hand. Normally when he has to wait somewhere Claudius runs through the death list, but as it turns out, doing that when standing in the building where over a hundred kids have stood before him, most of them never coming back again, feels a little like spitting on someone's grave.

Instead he plays with strategy. It all depends on what Lyme and his stylist think, but Claudius knows his appearance does narrow his options a little. He's not a bruiser, so the standard Two smash-and-glare won't really work for him, but he's not young and pretty enough to manage any sort of guile, either. Claudius knows, has always known, that his for-Career-values-of-average looks are his weak point, but that's why he's spent the last few years working out a nasty grin that literally made a man piss himself before Claudius slit his throat.

Nasty won't cut it, though, not to the end; the only real problem with being a Two is that nobody likes the villains, not ultimately; people cheer for them because of the sport, the spectacle, but you have to prove yourself just enough a hero that they can root for you even though you're bigger, stronger, and have every advantage. It means that someone like Claudius has to be careful, because being smaller means he'll have to play it mean, but he needs to find the line.

Luckily it's not his job to figure that out on his own, though of course his mentor will appreciate the initiative as long as he doesn't try to run the show; Claudius lets a flicker of the excitement he's feeling at learning what angle Lyme has planned for him show on his face, just in case she's watching on a screen somewhere.

They lead him into the train - the crowd outside gathers close, pressing up against the barriers to wish them goodbye, and Claudius and Nikita wave from the windows with picture-perfect smiles - and once it pulls out into the long stretch of track curving around the mountain, Claudius steps back and sits down. He and Nikita don't talk; the air bristles with competition already, but it's not deadly, not yet. It's too soon to start thinking about that; they have to think of themselves as temporary allies, even if it's both suicidal and forbidden to go all the way to friends. They won't kill each other if they can help it - Twos don't go out of their way to kill other Twos - but that doesn't mean they'll die to avoid it, either.

Then Lyme and Nero walk in, and all bets are off because their faces are pinched and full of dread, all narrowed eyes and clenched teeth. It's grim and the air in the train car feels thick and cold and hot all at once, oppressive and foreboding, and this is not the kind of dramatics that Claudius should be engaging in already.

Still, he's not going to speak without being spoken to, not right off, and so Claudius sits and waits for them to say something. Finally Lyme thins her lips. "They're making a statement this year," she says, and Claudius' stomach plummets. Beside him Nikita twitches, just a brief spasm of her hands against her knees, but it's as good as a full-body flinch for a Two. "Still waiting on official word, but we have the preliminary details."

And that's right, Two mentors get details of all the other tributes before anyone else other than District One - not even Four, the interlopers who manage to scrape by into the Career category because they build them pretty in the swimming districts and get enough food by fishing that they can spare the time to teach them how to use harpoons and spears - and that's bad. Whenever the list of tributes shakes the mentors, that's never a good thing. Claudius tries and fails to remember the last time this happened.

Nero walks by and turns on the television screen, and Claudius sits back to watch. Even if Lyme hadn't warned him, Claudius would know something's up when Nero skips past the commentary and jumps right to the first Reaping itself. The analysis of audience and Gamemaker opinion is just as important, but apparently not this year. The scent of Nikita's hair oil fills his nostrils again, and this time he has to try extra hard to breathe.

They start with District One, as usual, and if Claudius were watching in the Centre with the other trainees he would tune out because the Ones are boring, stuck-up bitches and sons-of-bitches who think they're better just because they call their training centre the Academy instead. He can't afford to do that this time, though, and when the first name gets pulled out of the bowl and the crowds move back, both Claudius and Nikita suck in an audible breath. Neither of their mentors scold them, which means they got it right.

The Volunteers are District One standard stock, beautiful and arrogant and nothing that makes them stand out, but they're not the ones that make Claudius lean forward in his chair. It's the kids they stepped up for: twelve-year-olds, both of them.

"No," Nikita says in a low voice, and Nero doesn't shush her for that, either.

They skip over their own Reaping - another first, as far as Claudius knows - and move right to Three. This time there are no Volunteers, and Claudius watches with a hand squeezing his chest as two twelve-year-olds mount the stage and stare, eyes wide, looking out at nothing because they don't know how to find the cameras or even remember that they're there.

Volunteers in District Four, of course, bronzed and gorgeous, also standing in for twelves. After Four it's nothing but twelves straight down to the thinnest, sickliest pair with the coal-black hair and once-a-year scrubbed skin, all of them blinking and shivering on stage despite the heat. Many of them cry.

"What-" Claudius says aloud, his throat dry, "- the fuck?"

Lyme's eyes are hard and furious, and Claudius knows now that it doesn't matter what angle they play him, he'll be the one who murdered the youngest, most helpless children; regardless of what he does, they will hate him, for being one of the privileged six even more than usual. _Child-killer, child-killer_, as bad as the ones from the outlying districts who snap and stick their knives into the little ones' eyes, the ones who disappear after their victory because no one in Panem wants to see them. The trainees whisper that they're put down.

Rage spikes in his chest at them for stealing this from him; he trained his whole life, only to be pitted against eighteen snivelling pre-teens just barely eligible. One of them looks like he might be a few weeks away from his thirteenth birthday, but that's it.

"Shut that down," Lyme says, and Claudius doesn't realize she's speaking to him until she punctuates it with a "Hey!" and he sees his nails digging crescents into his palm. He straightens his expression back to normal, and the fact that he can feel the effort it takes to smooth out his jaw and forehead tells him that his face must have been doing something special. He doesn't apologize, just forces himself back to neutral and sits up, getting his tongue between his teeth so he can't clench his jaw so tightly.

"What are they doing?" Nikita asks, but Nero shakes his head.

"Not our job to ask what they're doing or why," he says, but Claudius knows. They all do. The price of produce, bread, beef - everything that comes from Districts Nine through Eleven - has skyrocketed in the last few months, the result of stalling tactics by the districts that they claim are all the result of weather, or disease, or otherwise bad luck and not outright treason. The Capitol is pushing back, and the loyal Careers are the ones to deliver the message.

This year the Careers won't be playing to please the district audience. Sponsor gifts will be slim because they'll all be sickened - the betting will be all off, no point in laying odds when three-quarters of the tributes would statistically be dead in the first five minutes in a regular game - and the Gamemakers will be extra hard on those of them who survive the first hour because they'll have to make it interesting if they don't want it to end in a matter of days.

If Claudius wants to win this, if he wants to get anywhere at all, he'll have to stop looking for a balance between monster and anti-hero and start being the Capitol's executioner. It no longer matters that he stepped in for one of the district's youngest and most helpless, that the boy's mother offered him her thanks with tears in her eyes, because he'll be turning around and spilling the blood of at least four times as many as he saved. He risks a glance at Nikita, sees the veins standing out in her arms as she closes a hand over her bracelet, and he knows she sees it, too.

And the mentors didn't know. The Capitol pulled this stunt and the mentors didn't know, not even the Twos, and that's not how it's done and not how it should ever be done. Claudius wracks his brain until, in a flash, he realizes that this is their warning. It's their reminder that the Careers don't get to run the show, that privilege does not equal a right and it can all disappear in a heartbeat. That Twos can't always get away with killing the little ones fast and quick and only if they must, leaving them to the Ones who play the crazy better or the outliers who are so desperate they'll do anything; that they can't always be the honourable warriors. That the Capitol isn't the villain; _they_ are, and it's time to remind everyone just who they should be focusing their hatred towards.

And these are not thoughts that a tribute should be having before the train even pulls in to the station in the Capitol - these aren't thoughts a tribute should be having at all - and Claudius closes his eyes and wrenches his mind to more acceptable lines of thinking.

"Tell us what to do," he says, and his voice keens up at the end, just slightly, and he winces inwardly and gives himself a good mental kick.

Lyme doesn't comment on his slip-up, though, and this is wrong, wrong, wrong, all of it wrong. "You focus on what's in front of you right now," she says. "That's the Remaking. Do what you're told and we'll have a meeting before the parade."

Claudius thinks of his nightmare-face and the way he has to hold himself with three times as much confidence and brashness as someone twice his size, the way he's been trained to make himself look bigger, wickeder, deadlier than he is, and how that will look when he slices the first sobbing twelve-year-old across the belly. He's not sure he can retrain himself in time. He's not even sure if he should.

His prep team is disappointed with him. They twitter around him, complaining about his face, poking at his nose and wondering if they can't fix it in time - they decide they can't send him to the parade with a bandage covering his face, and Claudius rolls his eyes inwardly even as he stands there stone-faced - and one of them even says he can't possibly be a Volunteer because they're always so _pretty_. Claudius says nothing because that's what they trained him to do, and when they finish erasing the last of his training scars they sigh and decide that's the best they can do.

"It's too bad," one of them says in a stage whisper as Claudius sits and waits for his stylist. "Do you remember the boy from last year? He was beautiful. It's such a shame."

Yeah, well, being beautiful didn't help Pavel, now did it, because Johanna Mason gutted him in his sleep. But that's not an appropriate thought to have, either, and Claudius shoves it back.

They paint his face with smears of smoky grey across his cheekbones and dress him in armour that makes Claudius look like a statue of an ancient warrior hewn from rock. Claudius doesn't waste much time looking around at the other tributes at the Parade - usually it's time to psych them out by glaring or smirking at them, but Lyme tells him not to, not this year - but what he does see is a bunch of crying children in ridiculous, overblown costumes. He wonders what the commentators are going to say, how they're possibly going to spin this into anything but a giant execution.

_Oh, look at the two from Ten in their little white outfits!_ Claudius imagines Caesar Flickerman saying, mugging for the camera. _What adorable little lambs for the slaughter._

The actual parade is the first time that the Games feels the way it should, the way Claudius imagined it. The crowds roar; his own image glares down at him from the animated banners, fierce and proud, and when a bouquet of flowers makes it all the way down from the bleachers, Claudius catches it and brandishes it above his head like a sword. He and Nikita stand apart, tall and strong and separate, united against the others but not together, and the blood rushes in his ears and yes, this is what he trained for.

After the parade, Claudius expects the four of them to sit together and watch it, go over the other costumes and try to pick out strategy, but instead Lyme shakes her head. She takes him by the arm and leads him into his room; startled, Claudius follows her, watching as Nero does the same with Nikita. A chill spreads its way through Claudius like spiders made of ice running through his veins.

Lyme shuts the door behind her and waves a hand for Claudius to sit down. He's still wearing the jumpsuit he had on under his armour, and while he wiped some of the makeup off onto his sleeve, he hasn't had time to clean himself up properly. Lyme doesn't seem to care, and as Claudius sits on the edge of the bed, he realizes she's angry. No, not angry, furious; her jaw is set at a sharper angle than Claudius has ever seen, and every line of her body is hard and taut.

"First off, Nero can't know any of this, do you understand me?" Lyme says, and Claudius only just stops his eyes from widening. He thought the Twos usually worked together, at least at first. This year just keeps getting worse and worse. "I've come up with a plan, and if you decide to go with it, it starts tomorrow as soon as you leave this room and get in front of the Gamemakers."

Claudius sucks in a breath. "Why wouldn't I go with your plan?" he asks, because it doesn't sound like this is a rhetorical thing, like Lyme is pretending he has a choice to be nice. It actually sounds like he could say no.

Lyme's mouth tightens. "Because there's a really good chance that if you follow it, you'll end up dead."

Claudius sits a little heavier, allowing himself to drop fully onto the bed instead of holding himself forward. "What?"

"Yeah." Lyme runs a hand through her cropped hair. "I'm not going to lie to you, Claudius. You do this, it's a big risk, and chances are you'll get a boulder dropped on you. But on the other hand, you play the straight-up child killer and you'll _definitely_ get the boulder dropped on you, so it's up to you."

"I'm dead anyway," Claudius says, and Lyme gives him a sharp look. "I mean it. The odds were never in my favour - what, 20% at the outside, adjusting for the usual spread? - but this year, forget it. Anything you tell me to do that will help, I'll do it."

"I need you to understand," Lyme says, but she's nodding, so at least it looks like she believes he's serious. "If this doesn't work, you'll be dead faster than any Career should ever be, and if it does, you'll be a pariah with the powers that be. The people might accept you, but there's a very good chance that Snow won't."

Claudius meets her eyes and tries to put as much surety as he can into his voice, even though his palms feel slick with sweat. "But the safe bet - if I play it like a normal year - means I'm definitely dead."

Lyme hesitates, just for a second, but then she says, "Yes."

Claudius nods. "Then let's do it. What's the worst thing they can do, kill me twice?" Lyme frowns, and Claudius adds, "No, I know, they'll find someone close to me, but." He spreads his hands. "What have I got? If he wants to track down my parents and kill them, I'll kiss his fucking boots."

"Don't say that out loud," Lyme warns him, and she's serious. "Let them think they have a way to get to you; it's better that way. If they know it won't work, they'll just find something else." But this is all skirting dangerously close to treason - even Claudius, whose own loyalty goes to Two above all else, up to and including Snow and the Capitol, knows this isn't safe.

"Okay," he says. "Tell me the plan."


	3. Chapter 2: Lots of rules and no mercy

**Chapter 2: Lots of rules and no mercy**

Claudius slips out from his room early the next morning, holding his breath and glad that the Capitol doors don't creak or make noise as they slide open. Lyme told him last night that everything depends on secrecy and speed; if Nero figures out what he's doing, if he's come to the same idea, if he can somehow get Nikita to enact it first, then everything is for nothing. Claudius has to get downstairs to the training room before everyone else, and he can't be seen doing it.

Lyme is awake and up at the breakfast table when Claudius sits down; he's already dressed in his training uniform, and Lyme nods in approval. And it's not the right time for this, not when he'll likely be dead in a few weeks, but Claudius can't help it; seeing that she's pleased with him, even for something dumb like getting up on time, erases some of the weight from his shoulders. Claudius lets himself bask in it for about three seconds before he shoves it back; he can deal with his attachment issues later.

He tugs his plate toward him and eats everything in front of him, quickly and methodically. He's heard of the typical Capitol bounty provided for the tributes in the other floors, but Careers don't have the time to waste stuffing themselves full of stew and cakes and airy pastries or whatever else it is that the others gorge themselves on. Now more than ever Claudius has to be careful; he needs to build up his weight, fuel himself and store as much energy as he can while he has the wherewithal to do it. He doesn't complain that the food in front of him is plain and boring; he eats it as fast as he can without making himself sick, then rises from the table.

Lyme nods at him and gestures to the door; Claudius nods back and slips out. She will spend the day with the sponsors and those laying the odds, doing her best to generate interest despite what seems like a clear-cut outcome; meanwhile it's up to Claudius to start planting the seeds right now.

His heart hammers as he leaves the Two floor and the Peacekeepers flank him, taking him to the training room. It's all happening now, and his breakfast sits a little uneasily in his stomach but not enough to worry him. For the meat - especially this year, it's not as though strategy is going to help them - the Games don't really start until the countdown reaches zero. For Claudius, it starts right now.

He is the first to make it to the training room, and Claudius very carefully holds back his sigh of relief. Good. Only a handful of Gamemakers are present in the box, and they're eating breakfast and chatting with each other instead of paying attention, but that's fine. One of them glances at Claudius as he walks in, but Claudius doesn't acknowledge him; better for him to pretend he isn't aware of them, or at least has forgotten they exist. In order for this to work he needs to be as natural as possible.

It's completely different to how he was trained, when he was to appear as media-savvy as he could, plenty of knowing glances and arranging himself for the camera. All of that is out the window now; Claudius needs to separate himself from the rest of the Careers, and one of the best ways to do that is to ensure that their best show ends up looking artificial and posed.

Claudius walks right past the weapons station and toward the agility equipment. He's always been fast, and his lack of bulk means he's much more flexible than the other Two males. He's never thought to put it to much use - it's not exactly in keeping with the usual image - but now it's exactly what he needs. Claudius rubs the chalk on his hands, dusts off the excess on his pants, and rolls up his sleeves. His actions leave white powder all over his uniform - it's not sloppy, but it is careless, and that will set him apart from the others right away. He runs a hand through his hair, lets out a breath, and jumps up onto the steady rings, ignoring the ring grips helpfully laid out for the tributes, and swings himself into a routine.

The rings have absolutely no combat application, no use at all other than to showcase upper body strength, but it's something Claudius used to do back when he was younger to pass the time. He might not have the sheer weight of the others, but thanks to sneaking in to practice weapons training with the bigger kids from the age of eight onward, Claudius has managed to build his shoulders and arms to impressive levels even if they don't look it. He used to practice the rings during free time just because almost no one else ever bothered, and he liked being able to work out without having to posture and fight for use of a machine.

He goes through the moves by rote, enjoying the burn in his muscles, until he hears the other tributes start to trickle in. The twelve-year-olds are almost all silent, some of them already sniffling, but Claudius continues until he hears the first burst of brash laughter. The Careers are here. He lets himself drop into the resting position, ostensibly to give himself a count of five to catch his breath, and he marks the Pack, for now the predictable other five members. No point in trying to ally with anyone else unless one of the twelves turns out to be a secret master of stealth techniques or something.

They stop when they notice him, and Claudius is grimly pleased to see Nikita fold her arms over her chest, her expression stormy to cover her surprise. Good. Whatever she and Nero worked out, she didn't expect him to be there this far ahead of her, and without access to her mentor until dinner, she won't be able to work out a new plan in time. After a second she moves her gaze away from him, leaning in to the girl from Four and whispering something in her ear.

They aren't a set. Claudius has made that clear to anyone watching already, and it's left Nikita on edge. Nobody likes to be the odd Career out in the Pack, and Claudius has already struck the first blow by putting her off balance. Whether the others decide to accept her, ostracizing him, or to use his gesture as an opening to cut her out too, only time will tell, but Claudius expects to see results by the end of the day.

It's not enough, though. Twos usually work in pairs until the alliance breaks, but not always; for one to ignore his district partner is not unprecedented, especially during an unusual year like this. The Gamemakers won't mark this as interesting enough to pass it on to the sponsors and bookies just yet, not on this alone. Claudius has to do more than that.

He lets go of the rings and drops down onto the mats. The Pack stands in the centre of the room, monopolizing the space, and normally Claudius would be right there with them, mocking the meat for their incompetence and trying to psych them out by staring. He swallows. This is it. They're between him and the edible plants station, where one of the twelves is standing with a broken, lost expression on his face, and this is the moment.

More Gamemakers have arrived, and they're watching the tributes with at least cursory interest. Claudius swallows, lets out a breath, and then walks right past the Pack on his way to the edible plants. He makes sure to knock hard against the shoulder of the One boy on his way by, and when the One bares his teeth and asks "What's your problem, man?" Claudius just gives him a cold look over his shoulder and keeps on walking.

The first Gamemaker stops talking and turns to look. Claudius keeps his expression still, but inwardly he pumps his fist. First point to him.

Now or never. Claudius parks his hip against the table and looks down at the twelve, who jumps and stares up at him with panicked red-rimmed eyes. "So what district are you from?" Claudius asks. He keeps his voice neutral, the sort of curious that only happens because he's bored, not because he's deeply invested. It's a fine line to walk. Either way he pretends not to notice the district number on the kid's uniform, patches on each sleeve and one just above the middle of his shoulder blades. Not the point.

"Seven," says the boy in a quiet voice, and he shies away from Claudius but isn't running. The trainer in charge of the station gives Claudius a look, warning him that if this is some kind of trick so he can stab the boy and run, it won't be appreciated.

"Huh," Claudius says. He picks up one of the plants, a spiky thing with dark leaves that he can't remember the name of but knows he should only eat if he plans on squatting over a hole for the next three days. "So did you know Johanna Mason?"

It does suck for Seven. Outliers almost never win twice in a row, and last year's victor's trick of playing up the sobbing, terrified weakling means that strategy is out for anyone else. Oh well.

But then Seven gives Claudius a look, exasperated and almost annoyed, before he remembers where he is and who he's glaring at and everything turns back into panic. Claudius raises his eyebrows. "What's that for?" he grins, and it's still his scary-as-shit smile but it's not his I'm-gonna-gut-you one, so there's that. "No fighting before the Arena, so go ahead and say it."

Seven chews on his lip, then finally in a burst of bravery he says, "Seven is a big district! We don't all know each other but everybody thinks we do!"

Claudius actually laughs, legitimately, and he has to catch himself before that goes too far. "My bad," he says, snickering. "Well, you learn something new every day." He drops the plant and brushes off his hands. "Say that at your interview. It'll make them laugh."

Seven frowns. "Why would you tell me that?"

_Because letting them see me tell you means I might actually get to live._ "Free sample," Claudius says. The uniforms have no pockets, but he hooks his fingers in the belt loops and saunters off.

The Pack watches him with crossed arms and narrowed eyes, and their body language is all angled toward each other. Good.

"There are two ways this could go," Lyme warned him last night. "They could panic and splinter off into their own pairs, or they could band together even tighter because you're breaking the pattern and that's what they know. We can deal with the first if it happens, but the second will be easier. The closer they are, the more you'll stand out. If you play it right, by the time they get it, it's too late."

Four curls his lip. "So, what, you're a meat-lover now?" he calls out. At least three of the twelves flinch.

Claudius holds his gaze, his stare impassive, until he's sure the Gamemakers are watching, and then he yawns deliberately and rubs at his eye with his middle finger extended. Four hisses, the veins in his neck standing out, and Claudius turns his back. Seven lets out a shocked, semi-hysterical giggle and immediately claps his hands over his mouth, eyes wide and horrified. Claudius makes sure the Gamemakers can see it when he winks.

* * *

Lyme shuts the door behind them. She fixes him with a long, measuring look, and Claudius stands still at attention, his hands shaking from the sheer force of trying to will them not to ball into fists. "You did it," she says at last. "They 'leaked' footage of you in training to some of the sponsors and bookmakers. You did good."

Claudius sags, just a little, but he swallows instead of letting himself relax. It's harder than he would've thought to keep the desperation off his face; ever since he was little, the other kids always made fun of him for lighting up whenever a trainer gave him even the slightest praise. "So what do we do now?"

"Now we play your angle." Lyme's eyes flick over his face, and when her gaze hardens a little Claudius knows she saw it, the need and desire and the _wanting_ and he composes himself but it's too late. She saw it. "You need to tell me why you're here."

Claudius licks his lips. He can do the speech as well as any of them; he's been able to rattle off the whole spiel about honour and glory and pride for his district, the Capitol, the President and Panem, but he senses that isn't what she wants. Still, he's not sure that what she wants is an abandoned kid's oaths, hissed into a tear-soaked pillow, either. "Is this a trick question?"

"I've got your file," Lyme tells him. "They tried to send you home every chance they could, but you wouldn't take it. Any time they sent you away, you ran right back and you made them take you. Tell me why."

Claudius looks down. He has paint under his fingernails from the camouflage station, and he stares at that, the smudges of green and grey ground into his calluses. Well. She's asked him now, and what's the worst thing that can happen? She'll decide he's a fraud and a weakling and let him die anyway, and he'll just bite the dust for sure instead of having a one in six chance of walking out alive?

"Nobody ever wanted me," he says, and he doesn't look up. He can't. He has to say it and then he can look at her and see the judgement on her face. "You've got my file, you saw it. Even the families who thought they did, I was too mean, too angry, not cute enough, whatever. But if I win, I get a mentor and the Village and I'll be with people who understand me. Forever. If I don't get that, it doesn't matter if I'm in the Arena or in some shitty apartment in Careertown. Either way I'm dead." He laughs, and he's not crying but he does dig a knuckle between his eyes. "Don't think we can put that one on TV, but you did ask."

Lyme says nothing for a long time, and when Claudius finally gets up the courage to look at her, her expression is blank in the way that means it's because she's forcing it to be that way. "We can use that," she says, slowly, carefully. "But you need to be all right with it, and what it means for you." She folds her arms. "It means the Pack will hunt you. You put yourself out there as vulnerable, someone who actually wants something beyond the usual line, and that's blood in the water. They'll try to take you down before you even get in, make you look like a joke. You'll have to be prepared."

Absurdly, Claudius remembers being ten or so, around when the kids were playing the 'which mentor would you want' game, and drawing a picture in his free time. It was the typical thing he'd seen other kids do in the orphanages during his short stints there, the house with the flowers and the kid and the imaginary parent, and some of them saw him and laughed at him but they didn't notice that both the kid and the mom in Claudius' picture had swords at their waists and a line of black around one wrist.

"If you think it will help," he says, and raises his head. Lyme smiles at him, and it's just a little one, tense and tight, but it's real and it hits Claudius right in the gut, and yeah, he's in trouble, but it's too late now.

* * *

Lyme walks with him to training the next day, and mentors aren't allowed in the room with the tributes so she stops outside the door, their Peacekeeper escorts behind her. They waited a little longer this morning; the Careers are already there, and about half of the others, and while they pretend not to, Claudius knows everyone is looking.

"Give 'em hell," Lyme says, and and she grips Claudius by the back of the neck and gives him a small shake. Her fingers slide through his hair on the way out, and she warned him she would do it and he knows it's for show but it isn't, quite, and Claudius smiles at her before he can pull it back.

"Yes ma'am," he says, sharp and smart and just a little cheeky, and he tosses off a salute that's all three but definitely more of the third. Lyme snorts, and Claudius heads into the training room, his heart thumping. If any of that footage makes it out, people will be falling off their seats; Two mentors and their tributes have historically been very professional and very, very private. Affection is for the ones who die.

Judging by the look the Pack gives him as he walks in, this wasn't lost on them.

"Well that was cute," drawls District One, Male. "Did she tuck you in at night, too?"

"Just because yours is using you as a stepladder for their career doesn't mean mine is," Claudius shoots back, and he hums to himself and heads for the weapons. He spent all day yesterday avoiding them; now it's time to show everyone that he didn't do that because he doesn't know how to use them.

"Hey," calls out Seven as Claudius passes, and it's a quick, brave burst, like he wasn't sure whether to do it but finally decided to hell with it.

"Morning," Claudius says, and tosses off a casual wave. "Try the ropes." He doesn't look to see if the kid follows his advice - Claudius can't set himself up as the best friend or anything, not when he's going to be sticking knives into the little ones next week - but it doesn't matter, he's done his job. Now to remind them how he got here.

Whether a Career picks a specialty and sticks with it depends on their image, and Lyme told Claudius he can't do that. He has to play against the mould, and that means not letting them pin him down and attribute characteristics to his chosen weapon. That's fine; they could never find one to hold him to in training, either, and the Centre tended to err on the side of versatile unless there was something extremely iconic.

He does the rounds instead. He picks up a few swords, tests their weight before choosing the one that fits best, and he works over the training dummies in a smooth, almost perfunctory way; he doesn't bother scowling at them or smirking or anything to make it clear these are people analogues. That's the kind of game for later, if he plays it at all; Claudius just goes through the moves with all his skill and none of the acting, and when he finishes he slides the sword into place on the rack and moves on to the staffs.

Claudius doesn't skip a single weapon, even the ones like the bow and arrow that he's less proficient at; normally he would be ordered to stay away from those to avoid breaking the myth of Career-omnipotence, but they need to humanize him. That includes him wrinkling his nose at the bola and tossing it completely off the mark before shrugging and nailing the bulls-eye with a spear ten seconds later.

By the time he finishes, the Pack is watching him, and all of them have expressions contorted into anger and hatred. They don't know what game he's playing but they know they don't like it. "Impressive," says the One girl, rolling her eyes. "You gonna suck their dicks next or what?"

"Hey, they're not gonna sponsor _me_ because I'm pretty," Claudius retorts, and she flushes because everyone knows why the girls from her district get their money and it's not because they can gut a man with a sword and not spill a drop of blood on their clothes if they don't want to.

The group's body language tightens again, them putting up a united front against this outsider, this Pack-traitor, the one peeling back the veneer just enough and saying the things that no one ever says out loud. "They're going to think you're suicidal," Lyme had said. "They'll be happy to help you out if you give them the chance." Looking at them now, Claudius believes her.

He spends the rest of the day going through the stations, alternately antagonizing - and thus further ostracizing himself from - the Pack and chatting with the kids. The others saw him talking with Seven, and while none of them are that brave, Claudius notes that they do start aligning themselves so that he's between them and the Pack. Claudius doesn't acknowledge or encourage it - again, he's not their protector, and they'll remember that soon enough - but it's good for the others to see it happening even if he pretends not to himself.

At one point near the end of the afternoon, they all line up to wait for their turn on the climbing rig, a combination of ropes, bars, and rings over a fifteen-foot drop.. The boy from Nine is ahead of Claudius, and he's too short to see over the Careers in front of her to watch what's going on, so he turns and glances nervously at Claudius instead. They're standing near the area where the Gamemakers are taking their afternoon snack, and Claudius knows they'll be able to hear the conversation without much effort. Good.

"Saw your Reaping," Claudius says, and the boy flinches but doesn't run. "You didn't cry. Good for you."

His eyes dart away. "Too scared to cry."

"Everybody's scared," Claudius says, and he doesn't exclude himself or the Pack from this and knows they'll note that. "Lots of people cry anyway. That's good. Shows you're strong."

Nine snorts, and he fingers the sleeves of his training uniform. "Not like it's gonna help me," he says, almost defiant, his broad outlying vowels twanging. "I wouldn't die any faster if I cried."

Claudius has a split second to wonder what it must be like to be the meat and go in not knowing it's going to be you, not have the preparation and the training, and he might have thrown up the first time he drove a dagger up beneath a man's jaw and into his skull when he was fourteen years old but he'd take that over being this kid any day.

"Still," Claudius says with a shrug. "You got family?"

Nine isn't eager to play nice like Seven. His expression shutters off, and he folds his arms across his skinny chest. "Yeah," he says, almost challenging. "Two brothers."

"Reaping age?"

"Fifteen and seventeen." Nine hunches a little, but he's mad now, Claudius can see it, mad at everything, and he clenches his jaw.

"Huh." Claudius presses his lips together and shakes his head, and if he's done this right then they'll be able to use that moment later. All in good time, though. Plus it's Nine's turn, and the kid moves up to the rig only to get stuck halfway across, arms too shaking to let him move forward, but too stubborn or frozen to let go.

The trainer clucks her tongue and starts to go after him, but then she stops and glances back instead. "You think you can get him down?" she asks, one hand on her hip, and she looks right at Claudius.

Claudius wonders if Lyme bribed her, or if she's been instructed to play this up a bit to create interest. They have to do something. "Sure," he says, rolling his shoulders.

In another year, Claudius might have thrown something at him to startle him and make him let go, or climbed out on the bars and pried his fingers loose, letting him drop. This year, he knows what he has to do. Claudius scales the ropes, works his way across the rings, and comes up short next to Nine. He hooks one arm over the bar and holds out his arm. "C'mon," he says. "Grab my arm, I'll bring you back."

Nine gives him a suspicious look and even glances down like he's measuring how much it would hurt him to fall. "Right, so you can throw me down?"

Claudius rolls his eyes. "Yeah, exactly, because I need to toss twelve-year-olds off the obstacle course to feel tough. Seriously, I can do this without your help if I have to but it'll take twice as long and I'll be pissed. It's easier if you hold on."

Nine stares at him for a while longer, but eventually he nods. "I can't make my fingers loosen," he says in a near whisper. "They're really stuck."

"It happens." Claudius grabs the kid around the waist and pulls him hard enough to force his fingers free; the sudden weight dump jars him hard enough that his shoulder socket burns, but Claudius ignores it. He convinces Nine to get his arms around Claudius' neck, and he makes his way over to the far side of the course without any problems. "Down," he says when they reach the end, and Nine finally lets go and drops the last few feet to the mats.

The Pack watches him like they wish they could poison him to death with their eyes, and Claudius acts like he doesn't notice.

Right before the end of the day's session, as they're all finishing up at their final stations, Claudius catches the way District Four, Male, tenses right before he throws the harpoon he's been practicing with. Claudius throws himself into a roll even before Four pretends to lose his footing, twists and sends the weapon right at him; it wouldn't have skewered him to death or anything, but one good injury could put Claudius out of the running anyway. He dives to avoid the harpoon, but it brings him down hard on the shoulder he wrenched on the climbing course, and Claudius sucks in his breath in a sharp hiss of pain.

"No fighting!" yells the trainer.

"Sorry," Four calls out in a singsong. "Guess I didn't see you down there with the meat."

Claudius narrows his eyes and bares his teeth, just a little - he might be playing the outsider but that doesn't mean he's the pushover - and he knows the effect, when combined with his decidedly un-pretty face, is one to see. Four doesn't flinch, but he doesn't try it again, either, not yet, though Claudius isn't stupid enough to think this is over. It's just the beginning, and the longer it goes the worse it will get.

Lyme is waiting for him when the training session ends. "How'd it go?" she asks, and claps him on the injured shoulder.

Claudius allows himself a wince and another intake of breath through his teeth, but he pretends to brush it off regardless. There are cameras in the halls, too, and just because nobody's there in person doesn't mean no one is watching. "Good," he says, shifting to rub at his arm.

"What's that?" Lyme asks, her gaze zeroing in on the way he holds himself.

"Nothing much. I'll walk it off."

Lyme gives him a look. "Ignoring an injury when you don't have to isn't strong, it's stupid, especially right now. Let's get back and we'll ice it."

"Yes ma'am," Claudius says, and he steps a little closer into her space as they walk.

Instead of taking him back through the labyrinth of tunnels and corridors back to the living complex, Lyme leads Claudius outside. Claudius has a second to wonder what she's doing before he hears it, the chatter and low, murmuring roar of a crowd, the snap of flashbulbs and shouted questions. It's reporters, standing outside the complex and waiting for any tribute to show their faces.

"Follow my lead," Lyme says in a low voice, and Claudius nods.

"Always," he says, and she shoots him a quick smile.

The crowds press in close when they come outside, though nobody is suicidal enough to try to touch him. They all shout at once, and Claudius pretends to scan them, deciding who to call on, but really he watches Lyme to get the cue from her. Finally she narrows her eyes a fraction and points with her chin at a woman whose hair looks like a sheep went through a mid-life crisis and fell in a tank of cerulean glitter. Claudius makes eye contact with the woman, which is all she needs to push forward and thrust a microphone in his face.

"District Two! We've seen you and your district partner in the promo footage a few times, and I have to say, we've noticed a bit of chill between the two. You certainly don't seem to be spending a lot of time together. Is there anything you'd like to say about that?"

"Not really." Claudius shrugs. "Some years district partners have more in common than others."

"He's dead weight, I think, is what he means," calls Nikita from behind him, her voice easy and mocking, and she draws up beside him. She's bristling and dripping with disdain, and behind her stands Nero, silent and monolithic. "I'm not going to make an alliance with anyone who's going to drag me down. So I guess there is something we don't have in common."

"Ooh, it looks like we have a bit of a rivalry this year," says the woman, and she's zeroed in on the disgust in Nikita's expression, like a hawk folding in its wings and plummeting down toward a rabbit on the ground.

"I think that's a bit of an exaggeration," Nikita laughs, and tosses her braids over her shoulder. "Both parties need to be on the same level for it to be a rivalry. I'm not sure what word I would use, but I'm sure you guys can think of something when you write it up later."

Claudius rolls his eyes instead of baring his teeth at her, and he watches with a frisson of fear and satisfaction as something ugly passes over Nikita's face. The reporters catch it, too, and the woman with the microphone waits to see if either of them plans to elaborate before moving on. "So tell me, what was going through your head on the morning of the Reaping? Why did you volunteer?"

She says this to Claudius but she doesn't refer to him by name. Claudius would be very surprised to learn she actually knew it. "I have my reasons," Claudius says, and he lets his expression go hard and faraway. "There's something I want, and only winning the Games will get it for me. That's all I'm going to say right now."

Lyme surprises him then by letting a hand fall on his good shoulder, and she rubs her thumb, comforting, against the line of muscle in his upper arm. It's a gesture of solidarity, and it says more in those few seconds than an entire speech: Claudius might not have his district partner, but he's not alone. The reporters actually falter, and the cameras nearly explode in their haste to capture the moment. Two mentors don't touch their tributes. Ever. Claudius looks up at her, and she gives him a half-smile, reassuring and private, and Claudius smiles back, pleased and open, before he remembers that this isn't private, this is in fact the absolute furthest thing from private. But Lyme wouldn't have forgotten; she wouldn't have done this if she didn't want them to see.

They ask Nikita the same question, and she gives a perfect answer, practiced and trained and drilled into her since she was sixteen years old: bringing pride to her district and honour for the country, dedication and glory to the Capitol. Claudius glances at the crowd, sees that some of them aren't even writing down her words, but they are watching him and Lyme. Another flick of his gaze and he sees Nero, stone-silent and still but with a muscle in his jaw working.

"Anyway," Nikita ends up, and she sees it too but she's too good to let it throw her. She just ploughs on, but Claudius is suddenly very glad that his bedroom door has a lock on it. "I think it's pretty clear just from looking at us which one should be the favourite." She laughs again and winks.

"Oh, well, now, let's not get _personal_ just yet," chuckles the woman, and Claudius lets his jaw go taut. It's the prep team all over again, and let them think that it gets under his skin. Let them think that he's sensitive about his looks. Lyme's fingers tighten on his shoulder, and they see that, too.

"It's true," Claudius says, and he doesn't send his voice right to airy and casual like Nikita; he allows just a bit of an edge underneath it. "They say I have a face only a mentor could love." He pauses a second, waits to make sure they heard the play on the common phrase, and then he looks at Lyme again and grins. "Right, Lyme?"

Tributes don't acknowledge their mentors, either. Nero still doesn't move, but the lines around his eyes multiply as his muscles do their best to stop his eyes from widening. The entire crowd goes silent for a few precious seconds, shocked stupid, and that's when Lyme laughs. "Yeah, yeah," she says, and she punches him in the arm. "C'mon, time to go."

"Yes ma'am." Claudius turns back to the reporters. "Well, if you'll excuse me, I've got to get going."

The reporter tries one last-ditch effort to stop him. "When can we see you next?"

"I have it on good authority I'll be on every television in the country next week, so I guess you could tune in if there's nothing better on," Claudius jokes, and he winks at her before Lyme cuffs him on the back of the head, light and good-natured. "Okay, okay, I'm coming - sorry guys, the boss calls, but it's been a pleasure."

Lyme tugs him through the door and leans against it, bracing herself against the metal. He can't read her expression, but he thinks she looks like she wants to sigh in relief but doesn't dare. "What's done is done," she says. "You did good, kid. Time to ice that shoulder."

She tends to his shoulder with the sort of quiet competence that only comes from years of putting broken kids back together, efficient and quick, and it's not nurturing by any means but Claudius still wishes it would last longer. He's never really thought of himself as touch-starved until Lyme's hands leave his arm, and then Claudius nearly pulls his shoulder out again in his haste to get his shirt back on just so he won't feel cold.

It's nothing creepy. He's not interested in Lyme like that, it's not like he wants her hands on him in any weird sexual kind of way, but it makes him think about after, when he would hypothetically have far worse wounds to heal and whether she would be allowed to be more indulgent then. But there's no time for that. Claudius pushes it away.

"All right, here's the thing," Lyme says, and Claudius sits back against the pillows and draws his feet up. "We've laid the groundwork down. From now on what I want you to do is just keep up with the plan, and not try to think too far ahead. That's not your job, that's mine. If we both do ours, there's a chance it will work, all right?"

Claudius nods. He's always over-thought things, always tried to get ahead by making suggestions and trying to pull the strings behind everything, but he knows he can't. In the Arena you can't think. Thinking is for the meat; thinking gets you dead, because while you're thinking things are happening and by the time you're done thinking about them they've probably killed you. It's something they drill into them at the Centre as soon as they pass their exams at thirteen; you don't ever think. You let the mentors do the thinking, and you obey.

"It's looking better," Lyme says. "Your support is rising. What you did today will give people a reason to root for you. You're letting them see a little bit behind the Career mask and that's enough to keep them interested. It's not enough, but it's a start."

And who knew all they had to do was sell out the most sacred bond in all of District Two. Claudius does feel a little bit like he tried to wash his face from a mud puddle, but he trusts his mentor. Plus it's nice to pretend that they're actually friends, that they have this secret connection.

Lyme watches him, eyes narrowed, and finally she squares her shoulders like she's making a decision. "Okay. Cards on the table. If we're going to sell you as the kid who's in it for a family, then we need to sell this, us. That means we can't just pull it all out of our asses."

Claudius stills. "What do you mean?"

Lyme smiles at him, and it's not huge and wide and open but it's also not the tight, restrained for-cameras smile she's been giving him. "Do you know why I wanted you?"

Claudius sucks in a breath. "Well I know it's not because I'm pretty," he jokes, but it slides underneath him and he can't quite get a good hold on it.

"It's because you needed me," Lyme says, just like that, and Claudius' eyes go wide. "I saw your file. I saw _you_. I saw a kid who's fought harder and clawed his way through more than any candidate I've ever seen. You survived a ton of shit and you kept on going. They gave you chance after chance to turn back, with no penalty or repercussion, and promises of a good steady job, but you wouldn't."

She looks down at her hands. "I saw what you went through. All the placements that didn't work, all the people telling you they didn't want you. You could've turned too mean even for the Centre to use, it happens. But you're the plant growing in the middle of an abandoned city and nobody can figure out how you got there or how you managed. You're a survivor where anyone else would've given up." Lyme still doesn't look at him, and Claudius is glad because he doesn't think he'll be able to keep it together if she does. "Most of the kids who come through here, they don't know what they want. They're here because we made them, and it's my job to do everything I can so that's not in vain. But you - you made yourself, and you've always known what you want. If nothing else, I knew I could give you that."

Claudius twists his fingers in the fabric of his pants. "Even if it's just until I die?"

"Kid, I'm gonna tell you a secret." Lyme finally meets his gaze, and Claudius can't move. "It's _always_ until you die. You make it out of here and Two has your back forever."

Claudius digs the heel of his hand against his eye socket. "What if I'm only alive for another two weeks?"

"Then there's no reason for me to hold back, is there," Lyme says, and Claudius wants to argue that of course there is but he can't.

"Okay," Claudius says, and he covers his face with his hands. His chest aches and he swallows hard. "Okay, can you just, I'm gonna need a minute here. And this was a really good talk and I don't want it to be for nothing because you lose respect for me, so -"

"I'll read my book," Lyme says. She doesn't have a book.

Claudius counts off three hundred seconds in his head. He gives himself those five minutes to press his forehead against his knees and cry: for the years of curling up alone in a bed too big for him; for grasping for every scrap of praise and affection the trainers ever gave him; for dreaming of hands stroking his hair and telling him he's loved, only to wake and set fire to his bed the next morning because at least if they're calling him a monster they're not ignoring him; for finally getting a taste of the deep, dark need twisting in his gut just in time for him to bleed out in a ditch.

Three hundred seconds, and Claudius sits up, drags a hand down his face, and clenches his jaw. "Now what?"

"We have two days before the interview," Lyme says, and she doesn't comment on the fact that Claudius just burst into tears in front of her, that he never mastered the art of looking pretty when he cried but instead turns into something out of a book of horror stories. "This is what you need to do."


	4. Chapter 3: Time to start the countdown

**Chapter 3: Time to start the countdown, I'm gonna burn it down**

Claudius snatches the stolen slingshot from the air and gives Four a disgusted look. "Knock it off," he snaps, and tosses the weapon back to the girl from Five without looking at her. She's not important; his rivalry with Four is. "Don't you have better things to do?"

"Like what, training to beat this bunch?" Four crosses his arms, and he moves into Claudius' space. He's a little bit shorter but he's built bigger, and he's the typical gorgeous, tanned Four stock. Claudius pulls back his lip and sneers, makes it very clear how impressed and intimidated he isn't. "What do you suggest I do, build sandcastles with them like you do? Braid their hair?"

Claudius steps in closer so they're practically nose-to-nose, and he unfolds his arms to let them drop by his sides, fists clenched. Claudius learned how to threaten when he was five years old. "Maybe some of us don't need to pick on kids who are like four feet high to feel tough. Maybe _some_ of us bring it on our own."

"Maybe some of us are so butt-fuck ugly that we don't have to do anything, we just look at people and they drop dead," Four snorts. "How you gonna get sponsors with a mug like that?"

Claudius considers rolling his eyes, but at the last minute he narrows them instead. "You wanna try me?" he asks. "I can show you exactly what I plan to do that will thrill them, but I don't think you're gonna like it. What's the the word for when you take the skin off somebody? Fillet?"

Four does roll his eyes. "That's taking the bones out of a fish, dumbass. You're thinking of 'flay'. Don't they teach you guys anything in that backwoods district of yours?"

Claudius just smiles. "Right, fish, because you're a Four, that must be why I thought of it. See, you can look pretty while you talk about it. I can _do_ it. You just watch."

And regardless of where Four fits in the Pack hierarchy, he is a Career either way, and a verbal posturing isn't going to scare him. Claudius didn't expect him to be and he doesn't care; this isn't the audience he's playing to. "Oh I'll watch," Four says, low and dangerous. "I'll watch while I slice you open. I'll make sure to do it slow so you can watch, too. Wouldn't want you to miss all the fun."

Claudius moves in close again. "You think you want this more than me? You're wrong. The last time some kid thought he wanted something more than me, I broke his face. I pulled the smashed pieces of his skull out through his nose, and I told him I'd do worse if he ever tried to take it from me again."

He isn't lying, and he waits until Four sees it before leaning until their noses almost touch. "And do you know what I wanted then?"

There - finally, the flicker of fear in Four's eyes. He's not afraid of Claudius because he's a Two, because he thinks Claudius is stronger, or faster, or more skilled, or that the sponsors will want him. He still thinks Claudius is a joke who plays with the babies, but now he knows there's something else. He's afraid because Claudius is deeply, deeply insane. He doesn't take the bait, but it doesn't matter because Claudius already made his point to the ones who matter.

"I wanted to be here, right here right now," Claudius says, slow and deliberate. "And I am. So I wouldn't get in my way if I were you."

He turns before Four can do anything to ruin the tableau he worked so hard to create, and nearly runs into a wide-eyed Seven, standing with the medicine ball clutched in his arms. "Have you really peeled somebody's skin off?" he asks, his face white.

"Of course not," Claudius says, indulgent. "That would be disturbing."

Seven swallows, and Claudius watches the Arena swim up into the conscious part of his mind. His throat works like he's trying not to vomit. "Are you gonna peel _my_ skin off?" he asks in a high voice.

Claudius pauses just long enough, then he shakes his head. "Nah. Like I said, only pencil dicks do that."

"Would - you show me how to throw a knife again?"

"Sure," Claudius says with a shrug. Seven doesn't ask how Claudius will kill him, even though that would be a good strategy right now. Claudius tries to imagine what it must be like to be twelve and too afraid to use a good plan just because it meant thinking about something unpleasant. He can't. "Okay look, you hold it like that and you're gonna slice your fingers off, so ..."

* * *

Pattern firmly established, now it's time for Claudius to follow it to completion, to give the Gamemakers, the audience, the sponsors, and the bookmakers just enough stability that they feel he'll be a good bet. Outliers can afford to be totally unpredictable; Careers can't, even one who's been playing against the type as much as Claudius has.

During training, he splits his time between his different images, weaving them together. He antagonizes the other Careers, forcing them to alienate him further and band together even tighter against him. He trains, efficient and silent, to show off his skills in both weapons and agility and strength. He chats with the meat, all of whom by now regard him with a mix of wariness and preference to the others.

The boy from Seven has latched on to Claudius the tightest, and Claudius knows he needs to be extra careful with this one so that the attachment doesn't go over the line. Nobody - not the kid, not anyone watching, not the Pack - can be allowed to think that Claudius would consider an alliance with him, but he still needs to make his casual friendliness toward Seven and the others obvious enough that Caesar will pick up the ball and run with it at his interview. All of this will be for nothing if Claudius doesn't get to tell them all why he's here.

Whenever he and Lyme are in front of the cameras, they play up the easy, authoritative affection as much as they can without going overboard. She doesn't hug him and he never looks to her for protection or reassurance - he can't be weak, can't be seen relying on her, just that the closeness needs to come through - but she continues to touch his shoulder, squeeze his neck or ruffle his hair. All very parental gestures, and Claudius has lost track of the line between real and performance but it's all right because Lyme says that this time it's important to do just that.

Their last public appearance together comes on the final day of training, the morning of the private sessions with the Gamemakers and the interviews with Caesar. Claudius gets singled out by the reporters more than any of the others, even drop-dead gorgeous Nikita. Lyme forced Nero's hand by showing so much warmth toward Claudius; in order to avoid accusations of copying, he's withdrawn even further from his tribute, a silent, disapproving wall. He's obviously told Nikita to pull back on the personal anecdotes to make the distinction between the two of them even clearer; she talks only about her skills, leaves teasing hints about her strategy, and what they should expect to see from her in the Arena.

Claudius will feel bad for her when he has the lifetime of luxury to do it.

"So Claudius, tell us," says a reporter, and Claudius very carefully does not allow his eyes to widen. He feels Lyme stiffen behind him, and her hand tightens on his shoulder just enough that he can feel it but the cameras won't pick it up. They know his name. They know his _name_. "You've hinted that you've always known you would Volunteer. Could you tell us a little what it was like to stand on that stage after all those years?"

"Being able to do my part for the Capitol is the best thing I could ever do with my life," Claudius says, and he means it. Without this he would be long dead by now; he'd amazed himself with his own creativity thinking up with ways to kill himself when he was seven. At eighteen there'd be no stopping him. "Standing up on the stage was the proudest I have ever felt, though I admit it's a close race."

"Oh?" the woman smiles and leans in closer. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to tell us what's in second place?"

"Very close second," Claudius says, and he ducks his head a little. "The next proudest moment was when I found out Lyme had chosen me."

Silence. Claudius counts out a few seconds' pause, lets them work it over in their minds to see whether a Two has really given truth to the rumour that the Volunteers have been chosen by the mentors in advance, before he continues as though unaware of what everyone is thinking. "I mean, they do it in every district, right? As long as there's more than one victor, the mentors have to decide between themselves whether they'll take the male or female tribute. Well, for me, Lyme was my hero growing up, so when I found I'd get her as my mentor, I thought I was dreaming."

One of the other reporters - a stanch Nikita supporter - narrows his eyes. "You'll forgive us if we find it a little hard to believe that someone with Lyme's history and reputation would pick you over your district partner."

Claudius expected that. What he doesn't expect is Lyme to move closer, for her hand to move so her entire arm is around his shoulders. "Well I did," she says, and the reporter jerks back and hides behind his notebook. "That's all."

* * *

"Know your audience," Lyme tells him before he goes to wait in the hallway with the others. She holds his face in her hands, not loving and tender but gripping hard, intense, grounding him with her stare. "No cameras. No sponsors. No tributes. Nothing but you and the Gamemakers. This is where you show them how you got here, and why they should allow you to walk out."

Claudius nods. His throat is dry and scratchy but he knows that's just nerves, Lyme makes sure he eats and drinks everything he's supposed to when he's supposed to, and Claudius doesn't disobey her even when his stomach cramps and he swears he could never keep anything down. He always does; looks like his body obeys her more than it does him, which is just fine.

"All right." Lyme's fingers dig into his chin, and Claudius has the stupid thought that he wishes it would leave bruises so everyone would know who he belonged to. Like the silent pact that lovers make only not, because these would be mentor bruises except that's not a thing and he doesn't make sense and now is not the time. Not the time. He repeats the phrase in his head like a mantra. Concentrate, concentrate, concentrate. "Don't hold back. Show them everything, you hear me?"

"Yes ma'am," Claudius says, and Lyme claps him by the side of the face and says 'good' again.

He doesn't bother to introduce himself. They know who he is, and saying his name would be nothing but a ploy for attention, as good as screaming 'love me, acknowledge me, save me' and collapsing in a pool of tears. "District Two," Claudius says instead, and he starts the countdown in his head. Fifteen minutes, but he can't count on that; he has to mark the time as well as watch the Gamemakers, see if they're losing interest, getting ready to cut him off. At least the Twos go early, making it less likely they'll be bored by him, but still, he can't take the chance of timing everything to the last second and missing the finale just because someone has itchy fingers.

He picks up a spear and drives it straight through the nearest dummy. Over the next five minutes, Claudius goes through every melee weapon in the training area, limiting himself to just enough strikes with each to show his competence. Once the five minutes are up, however, he moves on; the One boy will have spent his time on nothing but weapons work, and the last thing Claudius needs is to be a copycat at this stage in the game. He moves on instead to the obstacle course, flinging himself through it with speed and precision, the one advantage that his smaller, leaner frame gives him over the usual meaty builds from his district.

Five minutes of that, and Claudius glances to make sure they aren't bored. They're not, but they aren't satisfied, either; most of them lean forward, eyes narrowed, or back in their seats with their arms crossed. They're waiting for him to be different, but what's more they're _willing_ to wait for it. Claudius doesn't need to be told twice. He grabs a dagger - wicked, curved, and short, good for digging out the other person's guts and flicking them aside with the flat of the blade - and twirls it in his fingers before tackling the nearest dummy to the ground.

"So you think you want this more than me, do you?" Claudius says, low and almost friendly, but with a good layer of threat underneath it. "You really think so? 'Cause I gotta say, you really don't know _shit_. You think you deserve this more than me? Because you're _prettier_ than me?" He grins and drags the dagger over the dummy's face. "We can fix that pretty quick."

But he doesn't, not yet. Instead he shifts, digs his foot further into the dummy's arm so he can lean his weight back. Claudius drives the dagger into the dummy's hand to hold it still, then pulls another from his belt. "Let's see, once I wreck your pretty face, why should you deserve to win over me? You're bigger, I guess that counts for something. But you know what they say about the bigger they are ..." He trails the dagger down, over the imaginary muscles in the dummy's arm. "... the easier it is to slice them up. Just like pork. I bet you carve up real nice, you wanna see?"

He finishes just before time's up with a thrust between the ribs, leaps to his feet and slides into a graceful bow. "I look forward to the Arena," Claudius says, and stands Career-straight until they dismiss him. He doesn't let himself look at their faces because he doesn't trust himself to stay neutral and it won't matter anyway because the score is all that counts.

They give him an 11. Lyme grips him by the back of the neck, and Claudius forgets how to breathe.

* * *

That evening, after Claudius is dressed and ready in his interview suit, Lyme sits him down in his room and goes over his talking points one more time. "You have to give them a reason to root for you, not just against the others," she reminds him, and she's said it a million times but Claudius nods anyway and lets it soak into his brain so that if he freezes it won't matter. "Remember. No matter what they're asking you with words, the real question is, _why do you deserve to live_. You need to answer that so surely that there's no other choice."

"I will," Claudius says. "You really think talking about wanting a family is going to be enough?"

Lyme hesitates. "There's something else," she says, and this time her eyes go hard. She's angry, Claudius thinks, though he can't begin to pinpoint the target. "This year the Capitol sent in a bunch of twelve-year-olds. No matter what you say about why you're here, people will still hate you for slaughtering a bunch of children if you can't find a way to turn it around. You need to twist the target, turn the hate."

Claudius frowns. "How?"

Lyme glances up at the ceiling in reflex, but the bedrooms are one of the the only parts of the Games Complex that aren't filled with cameras. "Remember when I told you that what I as going to ask you to do would very likely get you killed? This is what I was talking about."

"Tell me," he says as his heart trips in his chest; he'd thought they'd already covered that. He didn't realize they were still playing softball. "Either way I'm dead."

Lyme nods.

* * *

The lights are so, so bright, flashing in his eyes, but they trained him for this, put him in a room with white, reflective walls and shone spotlights at him, adding pushups for every blink, and now even though he can't make out a single face in the audience at least he's not blinking and squinting like the meat.

Caesar asks him the usual questions to start off - what he first noticed about the Capitol, is there anything he would like to bring back to him to District Two - before he switches tactics. Claudius holds his breath, because if it doesn't happen now, he'll have to make it happen, and the more obvious it is that Claudius is directing the conversation, the less effective it will be.

"So Claudius, tell me." Caesar leans on one elbow, friendly, conspiratorial. "A little bird has told us that you're being quite friendly with the outlying districts' tributes this year. This is unconventional for a tribute from Two. Are you telling us you have a soft spot?"

"Not at all," Claudius says. "I mean, I like kids fine, I was a kid once and everything, if you can imagine with this face." He pauses for the polite laughter. "I also don't really see the point in terrorizing somebody half my size, but you know what, the truth is? I'm kind of angry."

"And why is that?"

And this is it. Claudius pictures the audience sitting forward in their seats; imagines President Snow pausing as he trims his infamous rose bushes. "Well, I'm sure you've noticed there are a lot of twelve-year-olds this year," he says. "I mean, look at the numbers, it's every district except for One, Two, and Four. I've heard a few people saying that this is one sick joke, and the thing is, it is. Just not the way they think it is." He sits back in his seat, looks out over the audience and lets his expression harden. "I've heard people say that it's not fair, pitting a bunch of eighteen-year-olds against the twelves, but you know why I'm here? You know why the other kids my age are here? We're here because we stood up and took the place of a scared twelve-year-old. Meanwhile, all these other kids? They're here because nobody did."

"I see your point," says Caesar after a long pause. The audience is dead silent.

Claudius curls his lip. "It's bad luck that all the names picked this year were twelves," he lies, because he has to, and everyone knows anyway. "But it's _not_ luck that they all had to come here. That's cowardice. I know for a fact that the boy from Nine has two brothers, both of them Reaping age. So why is he here? Why is the girl from Eight? She has sisters, and she's got asthma. Most of these kids have family who could've gone in for them, but they didn't. So I guess I figured that since their own loved ones threw them under the bus like that, it wouldn't kill me to be nice."

Caesar nods. "That's a very noble goal," he says at last.

There, the opening Claudius needs. "Not quite," he says. "Look, I've been nice to the younger tributes because it's no skin off my nose either way, but I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea. I didn't volunteer because I felt sorry for the kid who got called. I volunteered for me."

"Ah, you did say something about that before, I think," Caesar says, and he's probably glad to move away from the pit of bubbling treason that Claudius was skirting. "Something about your mentor?"

"Something like that, yeah." Claudius glances back at the wings where Lyme is waiting, even though he can't see her in the darkness. "My mother abandoned me when I was seven years old. I spent almost six months on the streets, right through the middle of winter. I've been sent from home to home all my life, and nobody would take me." Caesar clucks his tongue and makes a sympathetic 'awww' sound that ripples around the audience as they pick up on it.

"Hey, don't feel sorry for me," Claudius says, raising his hands. "I did okay for myself, as you can see, and I should probably thank her even, for teaching me to be tough from an early age. But when I win, that's a whole community of people who will understand me and take me in, and a mentor who will look after me. I've only known my mentor since the Reaping, but already I'm closer to her than anyone who ever tried and failed to take me in before."

He looks out at the audience, lets them get a good, long look at him, the ugly teenager with the un-pretty features and the scars and the wild eyes, lets them imagine him as a child, small and helpless and unwanted. Lets them imagine him picking up a weapon for the first time and deciding to make his own fate.

Claudius smiles. "After I win, I get a family. And if my getting a family means some other kid back in Two gets to keep his, then I guess that counts as a bonus."

Caesar gives Claudius a long look, and one corner of his mouth twitches in a way that Claudius decides means he's awarding him points for a game well played. "Well, I hope you get what you came for," he says, and leans over to shake Claudius' hand.

The rest of the interviews can't even come close to his. Nikita is shaken and furious; Lyme's strategy means that Claudius painted her and the others as the Capitol's pet killers even more than usual, for while the districts might be at fault for the kids being in the Arena in the first place, they won't forget who's doing the actual blood-spilling. She plays her role perfectly, but it's not enough to win, Claudius thinks giddily, and she knows it.

He's not shocked, then, when she answers the question about what she's looking forward to the most. "I'm sure it's no surprise to anyone that the male tribute from my district has turned his back on the alliance," Nikita says, her eyes snapping. "I'm looking forward to digging my knife right into his chest. He showed disrespect to me, and to my district, and I'm not just going to let that stand."

Four Boy says in his that Nikita will have to fight him for it; Caesar chuckles and reminds him that there's plenty to go around, but Claudius just holds back his smile. Good. The rivalry is sealed now.

Everything goes through normally - Seven uses Claudius' suggestion and complains that not everyone in Seven knows each other and the audience laughs - until the boy from Eight breaks out into hysterics. "He's right!" he explodes in a prepubescent squeal. His voice cracks but he keeps on going. "Why am I here? Why are any of us here? Why didn't somebody volunteer? Why did nobody care? He's right! Why couldn't I be in Two? Then I'd never have to worry because somebody always volunteers! They don't let their little kids die because they're too scared!"

Claudius makes a note to find Eight and kill him as quickly as he can in thanks.

"You nailed it," Lyme hisses in Claudius' ear as they head back to the Two floor after the interviews finish. "Gold star, kid."

"This is it, though," Claudius says when they're back in his room with the door shut. They haven't seen Nero or Nikita on the Two floor at all; Claudius assumes the mentors worked out some kind of schedule to avoid meeting. It's likely that whoever wins this one, Nero and Lyme won't be buddies for a while after. He runs both hands through his hair. "This is it. Everybody's gonna be mad at me now."

"Well, the Twos will be mad at me," Lyme points out, and she sits next to him and rests her hand on the back of his neck. "You're just doing what I tell you to do and they know that. But yeah, kid, this is it."

Claudius doesn't bury his face in his hands even though the desire piles weights on his head and drags it down, because he is a Career and in less than twelve hours he will be in the Arena so he needs to be sharp. Instead he digs his nails into his palms and stares window that acts like a giant television screen; he programmed it the first day to play scenes from the woods and mountains around the Village, and that's probably a weakness he can't afford but it keeps him grounded and so Lyme hasn't said anything.

The interview repaired some of the damage he's done all week by calling out the Pack on their posturing and bullying, but it doesn't negate it by any means. He's given the people someone else to hate, as well, but Claudius is not stupid enough to think they'll thank him for calling them out on their hypocrisy. The outer districts thrive on their shared culture of victimhood, that the Capitol is evil and nothing they do is their fault; it won't feel good for one of the privileged few to tell them that this year's tragedy is of their own making. Likely they'll hate him even more. And even with this in mind, he's managed to twist Snow's attempt to control the Careers by making them his dogs.

"Is it worth going back?" Claudius finds himself asking, and Lyme turns her head sharply. "I mean, I just. Are you sure they wouldn't blame me? I wouldn't blame _them_ if they did. My interview will make the people mad, and they're too -" he waves a hand. "They're happy putting all the blame on us. What I said won't change that. They'll just get mad at us being the executioners. Which we are." He lets out a breath that's more shaky than he'd like it to be. "And don't tell me your career isn't going to suffer for this because you broke all kinds of rules and we both know how that goes down, and I don't want you to resent me."

Lyme frowns. "No," she says, and she slaps the side of his face, sharp but not hard. "Stop that, you shut that line down right now."

"I'm not talking about jumping off the platform," Claudius says. No matter how bad he thinks it will be, they'll punish Lyme for that - they always punish the loved ones of tributes who jump, make an example, and Claudius has made it very clear over the last week that it's not his parents he cares about so that's that. "I just mean, it's already impossible. It wouldn't take much for me not to come home. I'd just have to stop trying five hundred percent, that's all."

"Don't you dare," Lyme tells him. "Don't you even, you hear me? The Village doesn't give a shit what you do in your Games, not you, not anybody. You do what you can to survive and nobody will say a word because we've all done it. Every single one of us has blood on our hands, all right? We'll protect you."

"I hope so," Claudius says, and his voice sounds so small, so scared, and he hates himself so much. Maybe he should just jump. Twos aren't supposed to have doubts like this, they're not supposed to have any thoughts at all unless it's about the blood and the crown.

Except no. Lyme warned him all the way back after the tribute parade that this would be dangerous, that what she had planned could very well end up with his being killed anyway, and Claudius had said he could handle it. He'd looked her in the eye and said he was dead anyway, and he'd meant it then; why is he being such a baby now? He's never doubted himself, not in the eleven years since his mother dropped him off outside the Centre and changed the locks before he went back. He's sent eleven-year-olds to the hospital with caved-in faces. He's killed two men and one woman, all of them criminals but none of them less worthy of life than anyone else.

Claudius sits up, and he sets his jaw. "I'm sorry," he says, and this time his voice doesn't shake. "I'm the one being unworthy now. I had a - a moment, but I'm all right now, I promise. You can trust me to do what I need to do."

"Good," Lyme says, and then she stands up and claps her hands. "Up. You want some last motivation, I'm gonna give it to you." Claudius joins her, confused, and she slides her feet apart, lowering her weight onto her back leg. "You're getting a free sample of what it'll be like if you win."

Claudius has just enough time to lower himself into a defensive stance before she's on him. Claudius has trained since he was a little kid, learning moves too old for his age group after hours with the bigger kids - he's strong, he's mean, and he fights dirty - but he's no match for Lyme, who's bigger, stronger, and a victor besides. In less than a minute she gets him down on the floor and presses his shoulders to the carpet; something inside Claudius twists, desperate and greedy and every bit as lonely as he was curled up in the streets when he was homeless, but then she lets him up again. They repeat the process, and finally Lyme pins him against the wall with her forearm across his throat, and he scrabbles at her arms, fingers digging in to her biceps, but he can't budge her no matter what he does.

He's heard of mentor sparring, all the trainees who make it as far their senior year have. It's one of the perks of winning - one of the best ones for Twos, if they're being honest - because it's not just about physical conditioning. It's about proof, strong, concrete proof, that someone loves them and isn't going to leave them, ever. It's the way they comfort themselves, when they allow themselves to doubt in the middle of the night and wonder if they'll ever crawl out a person worth loving ever again, to know that on the other side someone is waiting to pin them and hold them down until they understand they're not going anywhere.

Claudius' breath leaves him in something that's almost a sob, and Lyme presses him harder against the wall. "Okay?" she says, and Claudius can't tear his eyes away and he thinks, maybe, maybe he sees a hint of the same need there, the need for him to come home so she can protect him, so she can make that promise and know she can keep it.

"Okay," Claudius says, and the panic and the fight and fear and everything fades, leaving him cold and quiet and determined.

"Good." Lyme steps back - Claudius has to fight back a sound of disappointment but no, he hasn't earned it yet, all he has to do is win and then he will, he can have this for real - and sits down, gesturing for him to do so as well. "I just want to go over the first five minutes, and then you're going to take what I give you and go to sleep."

"Yes ma'am," Claudius says, and for the first time, really, since climbing those stairs in the centre square, he knows he could dig around in his mind all night and find nothing but clarity. Even if he dies tomorrow, he owes Lyme everything for giving that back to him.

* * *

The hovercraft shimmers as the heat rises from the pavement. Claudius still doesn't know why they have to make it so far away from the doors - probably another kind of head game - but he's focused and that's a waste of time so he doesn't let himself think about it. Nero and Nikita have already gone, and he and Lyme stand in the shade of the Games Complex.

"Do what you came here to do." Lyme's arms grip his shoulders until they ache, her fingers digging in to the back of his neck. The cameras stationed all over the roof will be picking this up and people will be cutting this into the montage of every tribute's final moments, broadcasting the rare touching farewell from a Career district. Claudius doesn't care. He hugs her back just as hard. "You've wanted this since you were seven. You're so close. I've done everything I can but it's you now, okay? Whatever you have to do, do it. As long as you walk out, you're forgiven."

"I understand," Claudius says, and they can't stay so long that a Peacekeeper has to come separate them - not if he wants to keep any credibility at all - and so he pulls away. Lyme claps the side of his face, nods once, and steps back, letting her arm drop to her side.

"Win," Lyme says. "I'll be here."

Claudius touches his hand to his chest, fingers closed into a fist, the Two version of the outer districts' three-fingered kiss salute. "You know, I've always wanted to try brownies."

Lyme smiles, and it's grim but at the same time feels like sunlight and fingers in his hair and a quiet voice singing him to sleep. It's blood in the water and a sword in his hand with the sun glinting off the blade. "I'll make you some."

Claudius lets out a breath, then turns on his heel and strides toward the hovercraft.

* * *

He stares at the circle of light above his tube the entire time, forcing his eyes wide so he won't be left confused and blinking. They'll have a minute on the platforms before the counter hits, and Claudius needs to be alert and looking as soon as he can. Find the closest weapon. Ignore the others. No time to try to guess where they're going to run or what they'll go for. Until the buzzer hits zero, Claudius has tunnel vision. Him, the Cornucopia, and how he's going to get there.

Claudius hisses when his head clears the platform and he gets his first look at the Arena. It's picturesque, a meadow with sparkling flowers and waving grass and birds twittering overhead. Picturesque is never, ever good. He narrows his eyes, but it's not over the top like the 50th. He hopes that means something.

Still, too much thinking. Be alert, don't over-analyze. Claudius leans down in a crouch, rocking on the balls of his feet. He's practiced this, the mad dash with nothing mad about it, all speed and calculation and coiled muscles; practiced it with a band on his wrist that shocked him to the bone if he moved before the buzzer while the trainer shouted "DEAD, you're dead" from across the room.

The Cornucopia sits, shining and glittering rainbow in the sunlight, in the centre of the ring of platforms. It should take him less than ten seconds to get there. It will take Nikita nine. She's always been faster. Watch out for her.

The grass is too high to make out any of the gifts between the tributes an the Cornucopia. Of course. The timer ticks down but Claudius ignores it, he doesn't need to look because they've trained him to count down in his head just as accurately. Instead he scans the grass, looks for indentations in the smooth pattern of stalks that indicate where something waits. Assuming it is a gift and not a trap, but if it's a trap Claudius will deal with it then. No point psyching himself out now.

Someone to the right starts crying. The timer in his head reaches five. He glances at the clock to check his count - he's right - and then it's back to the Cornucopia. Back to his target.

Zero.

He runs.


	5. Chapter 4: The Arena

**Chapter 4: The Arena: We're Setting up to Fail**

The countdown tension has affected him worse than Claudius thought because he can still hear it, the loud ticking as the numbers run down, but that's not important. He heads for the first gap in the grass that's oblong instead of round, and it pays off. Claudius hefts the sword - generic, this far from the Cornucopia, the ones tailored to individual tribute specifications will be inside, but it's good enough - and slashes to the right at the sight of movement out the corner of his eye. He swings at chest level, which turns out to be the throat of the twelve-year-old beside him. Claudius doesn't look, doesn't stop, doesn't let himself show anything but neutral determination - he's not a hunter of these kids, but they're in his way - and keeps running.

And then he's ducking as the body of another tribute - the girl from Eight - flies backward and nearly hits him. She hits the ground so hard her neck snaps, and Claudius spares a second to check before moving on. He whirls around, looking for who or what threw her, but he doesn't get it until the boy from Eleven tries to run in the opposite direction and a forcefield on the other side of the platforms flings him back. Four Boy gets him.

They're boxing them in. Claudius takes out another tribute - quick, quick, dead before he hits the ground - and risks a look at the clock, then nearly trips over his own feet. It wasn't just psyching himself out, there's another countdown. It's at one minute and thirty-seven-thirty-six-thirty-five seconds.

The time until the forcefield drops.

The meat start to wail as they get it. Three Boy pounds on the invisible wall with his fist, only to scream as the recoil breaks his wrist. Someone else will get him. Claudius keeps running. Seven Boy is just outside his reach - he'd have to deviate to hit him - but before Claudius can make up his mind Seven drops, ducks under the grass and curls himself against the platform where the dent from his body is less obvious. That settles that. He can wait.

Claudius switches his sword to his right hand when he makes the Cornucopia. He's first; Nikita is on the other side, attacking the meat, the others doing the same. He has a few seconds to make his choice. Years of training with weapons too big for him give him an edge as he scans the bounty. One by one he identifies - and discards - the ones made for the others until he sees the one for him. It's not just the size that tips him off. It _looks_ mean, the blade long and curved with a sharp hook at the end, a scaled-up version of the dagger he used to carve up the dummy in his private session. Claudius finds the nearest camera and gives it a small smile, jerking his chin in thanks before taking the sword. He grabs a pack and slings it over his shoulders - Careers don't bother with supplies until the bloodbath is over but he's not in the Pack and this will signal that even more clearly - before heading back outside.

He runs back into the fray when the ground shifts beneath his foot. Claudius heaves himself to the side just in time as a gaping hole opens up where he once stood. Across the field, Nine Girl shrieks and disappears, as does Four Boy, but he's back up a second later, dirt all down his front, swearing like the fisherman he really is.

Claudius has no idea what they're playing but it's not his game to figure it out. He's just glad Four wasn't stupid enough to die in a hole before they get their confrontation. Without that, Claudius' angle got a lot less interesting.

He locks eyes with Four across the field. The screams around him dwindle as the number of mouths to make them drops. It's mostly sobs and begging now. The timer hits forty seconds.

"You gonna come for me?" Four calls. "Or you gonna run? Yeah, I see your bag, chicken-shit." He turns, lashes out and grabs the closest tribute by the hair as he runs, blind and panicked, away from Two Boy and his sword. A slash and twist and the boy hangs, held up by Four's hand, before Four lets him drop. "You gonna face me or what?"

Claudius narrows his eyes and walks forward, hard and purposeful. It lets him ignore some of the meat who could be in his range if he went for them, by letting him be determined and single-minded. He feels the weird unevenness in the ground once and springs over it without triggering the trap or setting off his stride.

It's not a real fight, though it will stop being pretend in a second if one of them makes a mistake. This is posturing, a setup, foreshadowing; they'll cut this with their final confrontation later, and both Claudius and Four know it. This is to set the stage and remind the audience that they're the ones to watch. Even as he crosses blades, even as he grins when Four spits on his face from behind their locked weapons, Claudius knows he's helping Four by giving him notoriety, a rival, but that goes both ways.

They spring back to regroup when the timer reaches zero and the forcefield drops, the air shimmering, and the faint buzzing in Claudius' ears finally stops. Before anyone can react, Seven Boy is up and tearing off away, a pack swinging crazily from his back. They let him go. Nikita is drenched to the elbows; both the Ones and the Four girl look like they've just come back from an internship at the butcher shop.

They stop, size each other up, and the air sings with anticipation like the mountains before a storm. They might have made an alliance back in the Games Complex but no one knows whether they're keeping it, Claudius realizes, and he grins wider as the Pack look back and forth. Slowly, deliberately, the district partners cross back toward each other while never dropping their gazes. Nikita sees it, and Claudius is here to win but he takes no pleasure in the fear that springs to her eyes.

Minutes in - minutes! - and the alliance is already breaking, and Nikita is the odd one out. The remaining meat tributes - all three of them - finally unfreeze and scramble away.

The adrenaline is finally catching up with him - the shakes are starting in his limbs - and Claudius is stuck. He can't run away from a fight, not as a Career, but he can't stay here, either. The alliance is splintering; Nikita has managed to stay with the Ones, and they haven't stuck a sword in her gut yet but they're just waiting. It's a tilting floor balanced on a hair trigger, and the first to move will be the first to die.

They wait, and the longer it goes the thicker the tension until Claudius can feel it, it's like walking through a cobweb and trying to peel the sticky threads from his skin, and the hair on his arms stands up - except, oh no. This isn't metaphor, this isn't Claudius' imagination, this is electricity, and he knows because once during his homeless stint in the summer he was trapped on the mountains during a thunderstorm and he knows what it feels like.

And here he is with a giant metal sword in his hand, a sword that he can't exactly just let go of. Claudius swears, shoves the weapon in his belt and takes off running.

"Coward!" Nikita yells after him. "I knew you were a coward! You run, traitor, I'll find you!"

They're still shouting when the sky breaks open and lightning strikes all twenty-four platforms. Claudius doesn't wait to see what happens to the Pack, stuck in the middle of it all. He runs, and around him the sky pours down lightning and fire. If the cannons fire to mark the end of the bloodbath, Claudius doesn't hear them.

* * *

That night he climbs a cliff face and jams himself into a crevice, leaving himself just enough room to twist around and peer outside when the anthem plays. The faces of fifteen tributes float across the net over the sky. Nikita's is the first of all of them - no name of course, just her face and "DISTRICT TWO FEMALE", and it hits Claudius harder than he ever expected it would. She deserves better than this, betrayal and an ignominious death, no name, just the picture on her file, her hair pulled back from her forehead, expression solemn, nothing about the years she spent to get here and all the ones she'll never have because Lyme played hardball from the start.

He's not surprised they killed her. They have enough to deal with, the Pack, with Claudius and his tragic story without giving Nikita the honour of being the one to track and kill him. They probably knifed her after the lightning, then split off into two smaller packs, assuming it was a tribute that got her at all. Claudius hopes so. If she had to die, a warrior's death is better than nothing.

Either way she's dead now, and Nero finishes the Games with one of the lowest scores in Two history, the winner being the 51st, when the mines under the Two Boy's platform malfunctioned and didn't deactivate after the countdown finished. She's dead, and Claudius can't pretend to hate her. He angles himself so that the moonlight hits him - or whatever it really is, it's always a full moon in the Arena - and the cameras get a good view, then presses his fist to his chest in farewell.

"Odds be in your favour evermore," Claudius says, letting the sky take his oath, and it's not nearly enough but it's all he can do.

Careers don't think about the afterlife, but if there is one and she is there, Claudius can't decide if she'd appreciate it or wish she was alive just to spit on his face. He pulls himself back into the cave and tucks his knees against his chest, only to lean back up a minute later when a high piping note alerts him to a parachute. He reaches out, plucks it from an outcropping of rock, and finds a canteen of water, the only essential thing missing from his pack. The note just says "FROM DISTRICT TWO" and he knows it's from Lyme, not Nero, but Claudius knows what she's promising anyway.

He sleeps with the canteen held against his chest.

* * *

Another cannon sounds the next day, when the sky pours down with rain that hisses and burns when it touches. Claudius' pack has a jacket, and he pulls it over his hands and keeps the hood over his head and the rain doesn't eat through that so he counts himself lucky. Hours later, the anthem tells him it's the girl from Twelve.

* * *

Two steps. Claudius pauses before taking the third, shakes out his arms and tosses the length of rope over a branch about ten feet away, tugging it until the knife attached sticks in the branches. The other end stays secured around his waist. He can do this. All he has to do is skirt the trees; if they force him out it will be the morning all over again, exhaustion and shaking arms, and he's not sure he can do it again.

Claudius swallows and takes the third step, swallowing a yell when the ground collapses underneath him just as it has every time. At least it's always on three; the Gamemakers give them that chance. All they'd have to do is make one of them happen on the second when he gets too complacent, and for all he knows they will.

It's been like this since morning, and the first two almost killed him. He caught himself the first time, digging his fingers into the ground and holding on while his nails tore themselves free of his fingertips, and he hauled himself back up onto the ground. Three steps later it happened again and this time Claudius nearly didn't make it. After that, least, he marked the pattern, and he knew to be ready for it, to grab for any handhold he can and drag himself up. By noon his arms ached, but his determination must have pleased the sponsors, because the rope arrived in a parachute just when Claudius thought he couldn't do it anymore.

A cannon sounds in the middle of the afternoon. He wonders if the whole Arena is set up like this or just his area, but it doesn't really matter. The ground firms up at sundown, and Claudius collapses, gasping, stretched out with every muscle aching, and falls asleep right there in the grass. That night the girl from Five floats in the sky. The only twelve-year-old left is the boy from Seven.

* * *

Claudius looks for Seven the next day, in the fog that messes with sound. He figures it out almost immediately because they did a similar exercise in training once; the closer something is the farther away it sounds, and vice versa. Anyone fleeing from the noise of an attacker will end up running straight into their swords.

He hears the sobbing - the fog carries sound much farther than it would travel normally, another perk - and his chest clenches. Claudius knows he has to do it. He marked Seven for death by torture by his favouritism anyway, and since he's the only twelve left it means the Pack (Packs?) will make it last. He gives himself a second to clench his fists and wish for another way before he moves away from the sound.

It takes him hours, and Seven doesn't cry the whole time but the fog carries the sound of his movements well enough. Claudius tracks him, straining his ears as far as he can, and so he nearly jumps out of his skin when the pounding of footsteps sound a few feet away. He has his sword out before he remembers it works the other way, too, and as the footfalls get farther and farther away Claudius steels himself. Someone's coming.

Claudius brings his sword to bear just before the sounds fade away to nothing, and almost immediately One Boy bursts through the fog. It looks like the daily tortures aren't Arena-wide because he has claw marks marring his perfect District One face, and Claudius hasn't seen any mutts. Well that's just lovely. He wonders if there's an edge to the fog, if he and Seven have been circling an island while everyone else stays the hell away.

One is grim and desperate and determined, no banter, no appeals to the camera, and he's alone, which means even the mini-Pack alliances must have split by now. His injuries haven't done anything to mar his speed or strength, though, and Claudius dodges and parries his blows with much less leeway than he would like.

But Claudius did not come here to be skewered by a damn One, no sir, and with a snarl he twists, takes the full weight of One's strike on his right shoulder. The sword slices through, hitting bone, and Claudius yells in pain but uses the second before One can pull it free to move, thrusting his left arm forward. One falls back, Claudius' sword in his gut, and he collapses to his knees, eyes wide and bloodshot, mouth gaping, before crumpling in a heap.

Claudius drops his sword and flings his arm in front of his face, biting the sleeve of his jacket just over the elbow to muffle the scream of pain. His arm feels like it's going to fall off - he almost wishes it would - and the pain arcs all the way through him. He's had worse - he let himself get hit like this in his field test, months and an eternity back, so he'd know what it felt like and how to steel himself through it - but it doesn't matter here, with the fog pressing in against him and the knowledge that any second now the Gamemakers could set it all on fire or turn it into acid, or worse. He doesn't know what would be worse, but that's why he's here and not behind the big shiny desk.

He drops his pack, peels off his jacket and his shirt. He has supplies in his bag - they're meant for minor wounds, not this, but he can't exactly be picky now - and Claudius fishes out the rope so he can place it between his teeth and bite down. The antiseptic-coagulant mixture burns almost as much as the wound, and Claudius screams and hisses until the blood stops. They're all taught how to stitch themselves up around fifteen, and Claudius finds the needle and thread and sews himself back together, gritting his teeth around the rope. Some salve, a bandage, and then he pulls his shirt and jacket back on.

He has no idea how much time has passed when he finally straightens, woozy but alive, and he leans on the hilt of his sword with the tip buried in the ground. After a minute's thought he yanks it free and wipes One's blood off onto his leg, scrubbing the dried patches with his sleeve held tight over his palm. He pushes his hair out of his face and feels a hot, sticky smear left behind, but he's pretty sure that's his own.

Seven's crying again, this time the hard, wracking, gasping sobs of fear. Of course he is; he'll have heard the fight. Claudius hangs his sword on his belt again and this time he doesn't waste time; if Seven stops crying or if someone finds him first, Claudius doubts he'll be able to do anything about it.

In the end, Claudius nearly trips on him. He looks up, and his face is smeared with dirt and tears and snot, and he rubs a hand over his cheeks. "Oh thank Snow," he says, chest heaving. "I hoped it would be you. You'll make it fast, right?"

"You bet," Claudius says, but even with acting fast he's lost a lot of blood, and he staggers a little. "But not yet. You got any food?"

Seven wipes his face with his sleeve. "Yeah," he says, sniffling. "I don't know why, it's not like I've done anything, but I guess somebody likes me, 'cause I've got a lot of stuff."

"Okay then." Claudius sits down with a thump, though he leaves the dagger from his pack in his lap. He didn't just survive an all-out attack by a Career just to get knifed by an opportunistic kid from Seven. "I've got some too. Let's pool."

Seven leans back, fear and confusion twisting his face. "Why? You're not going to kill me?"

"No, kid, I'm going to kill you," Claudius says, and Seven's shoulders dip. "But I'm tired and I'm hungry, and if criminals get a last meal I don't see why you shouldn't."

He bites his lip to stop it trembling. "Will you do it so it won't hurt?"

Claudius shakes his head. "It always hurts. Sorry. But how's this." His shoulder aches but he doesn't dare check it and give Seven any idea of how bad it is, so he rolls the joint instead while the muscles stiffen and protest. "We eat, catch our breath, and I'll do it after you fall asleep. I can do it fast so you won't even wake up. That's as good an offer as you're gonna get."

Seven loses it for a second, and he buries his face in his hands. His shoulders shudder. "Okay," he says, and Claudius almost misses it the first time, but then he sits back up and repeats himself, firmer this time: "Okay. You've got a deal."

They split the food between them, and Claudius has to give Seven points for not totally freaking out as he puts the leftovers into one bag and hands it to Claudius. He does tear up when Claudius takes it, but he gets a hold of himself and looks down. It's a pretty good meal as Arena meals go, fruit and bread and meat, and someone really must love the kid somewhere because he has a bar of chocolate. Even Claudius doesn't have dessert. Seven breaks off a square for himself and hands the rest over; Claudius just holds it in his hands and doesn't think of brownies.

Seven talks.

He talks about stupid things, like how his little sister, who's four, knows how to climb up trees but not down, and his dad had to keep going up there after her until he threatened to put her on a leash and keep her chained to the house, but he doesn't mean it. He talks about his dog, his model hovercrafts, his allergy to bees. Claudius should make him stop - it will just make the audience cry for the kid and won't do Claudius any favours - but he doesn't.

Seven winds down on his own. He pulls his knees up to his chest and lets his arms dangle. "I wouldn't win even if you didn't kill me, would I."

"No. They're not going to risk it, not the year after Johanna Mason." Claudius leans back, trying to make out even a shadow through the fog, but there's nothing. He wonders what special lenses or whatever the cameras have to have to burn through it all. "The final two will make sure you're dead before they turn on each other."

"The others - they wouldn't kill me quick, either."

"Can't say for sure, but probably not."

Seven nods and rests his forehead against his knees, falling quiet for a long minute. "Can - would you do me a favour?"

Claudius isn't stupid. "Depends," he says. "But hit me."

Seven reaches into his shirt and tugs at the bootlace around his neck, lifting it so Claudius can see the gold band strung along it. "This - it's my Ma's. I didn't have anything for a token so she gave it to me. When you win, would you give this back?"

If Claudius makes it out of here, the entire damn Victor's Village better come with him on his Victory Tour, because he's going to get lynched. "Yeah, sure," he says. "Keep it for now."

The fog blows away at the first trumpet blast of the anthem, and Claudius sits up and watches as DISTRICT ONE, MALE smirks down at him. Three to go, he thinks, once he gets rid of Seven, and Snow only knows what the Gamemakers have planned for the rest of the days until it's over.

"I don't know if I can fall asleep," Seven says, his voice small, and Claudius both hates and clings to the part of himself that tells him it could be a ploy even now.

"Just lie down," Claudius says. "I'll say your name three times to make sure."

Seven laughs, the sort of surprised, dead chuckle that leaves a person when he doesn't think he's capable of it anymore. "You don't even know what it is."

Claudius shakes his head. He knows all their names and all their stats; it's only for his own sanity that he sticks them with their district numbers instead. "It's Jeremy," he says, and lets mild accusation into his voice. "Same as my old man's. Now get some sleep."

He finally does, curled up in a ball and crying softly to himself. Claudius says nothing, offers no comfort. He's done everything he can, more than any Career has ever done and likely will ever be permitted to do again. He sits, hand on the hilt of his sword, staring out over the field and watching for movement, while Seven's whimpers die down and his breathing evens. Claudius says his name once, twice, and the third time he draws his dagger.

He keeps his promise. The cannon fires, and Seven didn't even twitch. Claudius slips the bootlace from around his neck and loops it over his own head instead.

Time to hunt.

* * *

He's not sure if he'll get credit for the girl from Four. Technically Claudius is the one who pushed her, but the river of fire is what did the actual killing. Claudius collapses, hands and knees on the ground, coughing and doing his best to suck air back into his lungs after she struck him across the side. Every gasp fills his nostrils with the sickening, roast-pork scent of her body cooking, and Claudius needs both hands to count the number of people he's killed but he wasn't prepared for that. For the way his insides roll in disgust even as his brain processes the smell as food and makes his stomach grumble anyway.

Claudius staggers back so the hovercraft can collect the charred remains. _Of course not_, he hears himself tell Seven, half a lifetime ago. _That would be disturbing_. He remembers digging the dagger into the 'guts' of the training dummy. _Just like pork. I bet you carve up real nice, you wanna see?_

He drags both hands down his face and laughs as his bruised ribs scream.

* * *

Claudius forgets about the boy from Nine until they run smack into each other while being chased by pillars of wind and smoke.

It's not his fault; he missed the anthem one night thanks to a massive thunderstorm that drove him into hiding, and he just assumed that the rest of the twelve-year-olds were gone. Still, miscounting is not a mistake any Career wants to make, especially this late in the game, and it's even worse for him because he's already used his trump card with Seven. He'd played that with the assumption that Seven would be the last twelve-year-old he killed; now whatever happens with Nine will be what sticks in their minds.

He could leave Nine to the others - except no, he can't, because Claudius knows how it will go down, and whether they torture him or just kill him outright it will still be eighteens murdering twelves and he'll have an even harder time deflecting the vitriol already heaped upon his head. He has to do it.

The sponsors didn't love Nine the way they loved Seven; he was too angry, too resentful, Claudius guessed; good fodder for the districts themselves, simmering with fury, but not for the Capitol sponsors with the most money. He doesn't look like he's spend the last few days eating fruit and chocolate, and he staggers with one leg trailing behind him. His eyes - red and rheumy from ash, exhaustion, panic - bore into Claudius' soul.

He tries to stay something out loud - Claudius thinks it might be "just do it", the tone and the way his face scrunches makes it sound like begging - but he vomits all over himself instead. Claudius makes it quick. Ten seconds from lunge to cannon.

But because he knows what he has to do, once he's done Claudius looks up. He finds the camera best suited for the angle and stares at it, not glaring, not accusing, but matter-of-fact. "I dedicate this kill to his brothers at home in District Nine," Claudius says, and he holds up the dagger, the blade slick with Nine's blood. "The ones who could have stepped up but didn't. May you never live to regret your decision." He wipes Nine's blood on the grass, deliberately, and puts the dagger away. "I hope the popcorn tastes good," Claudius adds as a final jab. "Try using thyme."

* * *

No Feast this year. Not enough tributes. Claudius wraps his arms around himself and thinks of apples, fresh and tart and crisp, the tearing sound as the skin snaps under his teeth. He thinks of oatmeal, how they let him pile it high with scoops of brown sugar and rivers of milk until he turned thirteen and entered residential officially and had to learn to eat it plain. He even thinks of the boring Centre protein shakes they stuffed him with in the months before the Reaping in a last-ditch effort to get him to bulk up as much as he could.

He doesn't think of pork. It's not that hard; they never served at in the Centre anyway.

He doesn't think of brownies, either.

* * *

By the time the penultimate cannon sounds, leaving him and one soon to be determined tribute, Claudius thinks he might have lost his mind. He's trained for this but he hasn't trained for _this_, and he wonders what Lyme thinks now as she watches him on the screens in the Control Centre. His Field Exam lasted a full three weeks with nothing but him, the elements, and the Centre's creations, and by the end Claudius was dazed and close to babbling but he made it out standing, with more sanity than most. His Exam had nothing on the real thing.

He should be better than this but he isn't, and he does what he can to keep himself sane. Every night Claudius finds shelter, a tree or a cave or riverbank, and he clutches the canteen Lyme sent him in the crook of his arm and strokes his bracelet. He counts the beads and the strands, marking every milestone, every accomplishment, every step on the journey that's lead him here.

He doesn't think about after because there is no after. There is only now. But when the cannon fires - it's the girl from One or the boy from Four and he won't know until the Gamemakers drive them together - Claudius gets to add another word: _soon_.

_Soon_ drums in his veins and spreads through his limbs like fire, like the adrenaline shots they gave him in training during his exhaustion test - Claudius lasted five days without sleep before succumbing, before they found him sitting in a corner with his dagger, stroking it like a mother might her baby's hair and telling it everything would be okay - like the pain from his shoulder that sometimes sends a shiver of chills through him that means it's likely infected despite his best efforts.

Two ways this could go, depending on how they want to play it. End it now, or wait until tomorrow. It's impossible to predict because there's no pattern that any of the trainers found - or maybe there is and they don't tell the trainees because that's too much thinking and the minute a tribute thinks they can outwit the Gamemakers they're dead - but Claudius knows how to tell. Lyme will know. Lyme will have access to that, and she can give him a hint.

He stands up straight, cracks his neck and his shoulders and his back, turns his un-pretty face up to the sky and rests a hand on the pommel of his sword. "Something for luck?" he asks, and he goes for cheeky and nonchalant but he can't keep the edge of desperation out. That's probably better anyway. Nobody likes cocky like the Gamemakers; they love to find overconfidence and tear it out by the root.

Claudius hasn't gotten any gifts for the last day or two, and this is a shorter Games than most so he knows Lyme will have sponsor reserves left. Not a lot, maybe, thanks to the way this all played out, but enough for something. Enough for a sendoff. Enough, at least, to tell him whether the countdown to his death is coming now or twelve hours from now.

He doesn't wait for the parachute; instead he checks his weapons, takes a drink of water, and then goes through a round of stretches. He's just finishing up and considering whether to take out his sword and go into a set of training moves when the parachute drops. Claudius doesn't even try to hold back the wonder and need in his eyes as the new sword settles to the ground just in front of him.

It's as beautiful as Claudius is ugly, a straight double-edged blade with the top third bent down away from the bearer at a sharp angle. One slash and twist could take off an opponent's arm with almost no effort. The craftsmanship is unparalleled, but what takes his breath away is the design around the hilt, a swirl of black, interwoven lines dotted with orange, red, silver, and gold. It's the tattoo that all Two victors get when they win; the one that replaces the tattered bracelet that represents everything about who they are. It's another promise from Lyme, and it will have cost her dear in more ways than one.

She didn't send him any food, and that's all Claudius needs to know.

He doesn't leave right away. Claudius sits, tilts the canteen back until the last drops trickle into his mouth, eats the last of the food he's stowed in his pack. He checks his wounds one last time - his ribs have purpled to the point where they're almost black, and his shoulder is hot and swollen to the touch - then, deliberately, leaves his pack on the grass.

A flock of birds weaves its way overhead like a swarm of bees, heading off into the distance. Claudius smiles grimly and takes off in a loping run in the same direction. He's always been good at taking hints.

* * *

He knows he's close because the clouds roll in and the air bites at his skin. Frost forms on the ground behind him like an invisible giant dragging a blanket, and Claudius stops when it reaches him, the line about ten feet away. Let whoever's left do the last of the running. He takes the sword Lyme gave him and swings it, listens to the song of metal slicing through the air. He wonders if they'll let him keep it, and that's the last self-indulgent thing he permits himself before pushing everything but _now_ from his mind.

The frost congeals into a thick layer of ice. The trees sway and buckle, their limbs creaking under the weight. One branch snaps in half and hits the ground with a loud crack, and Claudius jumps. For a second he's seven years old again, hiding in the mountains and blowing into his hands in the hopes that if he does it enough maybe he'll feel his fingers again, but then he digs his nails into his hands and brings himself back. They made him take his Field Exam in winter to see if it would break him; it didn't then and it won't now.

Four bursts out from the trees, and he zeroes in on Claudius with a madman's determination. He's bruised and bloodied and half-crazed, and gone is his polish, his careful swagger and smug superiority. He's holding on by his fingernails the same as Claudius, and Claudius has lost count of how many fights he's been in but it all comes down to this. He raises his sword, and Four doesn't even bother to make a speech but charges straight for him.

Claudius takes the few seconds before the clash to note Four's weapons - a straight-edged shortsword, no fancy Finnick Odair tridents and nets here - and brass knuckles. Instead of the standard tribute jacket they went in with, he wears a shirt of shining, rainbow scales that stretches from neck to hip and all down his arms; some kind of special Four armour, though Claudius will test its effectiveness against sword attacks soon enough.

Four fights with the same mix of determination and insanity as Claudius. The same refrain plays through both their heads - _one more kill, just one more kill_ - and Claudius doesn't wonder what's waiting back at home for Four because that won't get him out of here and if he can avoid distractions now he will have a lifetime to think about them. Claudius' sword glances off Four's body armour and so he goes for the unprotected limbs, gets him in the thigh as Four knocks him hard in the side of his head with a metal-covered fist. Light flashes at the corner of his vision. His hearing fades to a tinny roar in one ear, extra loud in the other.

Pause, regroup. Blood runs down into Claudius' eye. Four's leg skids out from under him in the ice and he almost goes down. There's no showmanship here, no craft. The final fights are always ugly. Claudius dives. He tackles Four, gets him off-balance and takes him down. Twists Four's wrist so his sword flies free and skitters away across the ice. Four snarls and writhes and Claudius holds him down but he can't bring his weapon up to finish it, the angle is wrong and his sword is too long, his arm is stuck -

Pain arcs through him, first sharp and then burning, between his ribs and spreading out, farther and faster than any normal weapon should and oh. Claudius looks down and Four's fist is in his ribs but it's not just that. There are claws in his gauntlets, in his gauntlets and now inside Claudius, four claws that tear his insides and send poison through his body.

Claudius swings his sword wide, bashes Four against the side of his head with the hilt, but Four has madness and adrenaline and desperation on his side now. His skull staves in but he keeps going, and he throws Claudius off, rips his claws free and pulls back to strike again. The poison traces fire up through to Claudius' heart and the entire world slows. His limbs feel like he's underwater, sluggish and heavy, and paralysis grips him, tightens his muscles until they don't respond at all.

Four strikes.

_-"You're a monster," she hisses, her fingers tight on his chin, and tomorrow he'll tell the teacher that he fell and hit himself on the kitchen table, and this isn't right, none of this is right because mommies love their children, that's what all the books say. "You're a monster and I wish I could just get rid of you." Her eyes are hard and angry and Claudius cries and she curls her lip and then he's mad, so mad, and his arms fill with sparks and they're moving and his fist hits her in the face, hard, and when her head snaps back he does it again, hits her in the throat. This time when she looks at him it's not just hate, it's fear, and Claudius can tell the difference and he can work with that and she will never hit him again -_

_-"You lost, little boy?" scoffs the big kid. "You need help finding your mommy?" The trainers are watching and Claudius is tired, he's so tired, of doing this over and over and over again and he stomps down hard on the boy's foot, drives his elbow up beneath his jaw. Once he's down Claudius kicks and kicks and kicks until his foot stops hitting something solid and it gives beneath his boot instead, and that's when the trainer pulls him off -_

_- They put a teddy bear in his room but Claudius doesn't know what he's supposed to do with it. It's not a person and it can't hold him back and it just feels weird, hugging this shape made of soft fur, but the other kids know what to do. It's not Claudius who ends up clinging to the bear in the middle of the night. It's the thirteens, who slip into his room after their Centre Exam, who clutch it to their chests and tell him how it felt to end a life - a kitten, a chipmunk, a rabbit, a squirrel - and how they scrubbed their hands until the skin glowed pink and raw but the blood never comes off. Claudius listens and pets their hair and counts the years until he's thirteen -_

_- Brock teases him for having a mentor-hard on for Lyme. Claudius breaks his nose. Brock glares at him, cracks the bone back into place, and snorts out blood before wiping his face with his napkin. "You don't have to be such a bitch." Claudius gives him the finger -_

_- His first kill is a woman who murdered her husband when he touched her kids one time too many. She falls on her knees in front of Claudius, spills the whole story in a torrent of panic and verbal vomit, begs him to spare her, makes promises she will never hope to keep. "I don't believe you," Claudius tells her, even though he does, because he knows desperation and panic because he's seen it in the mirror. "I don't believe you," he says again as he drives his dagger up, up, up under her jaw, because they're watching. They're watching and they gave him a mother because they know, they know his secret, they know why when he sleeps he rests his head on his arm until it falls asleep so that when he runs fingers through his hair he can pretend they're someone else's. They know and he has to show them it's not a weakness. "I don't believe you," Claudius says, shaking, and turns and vomits on the grass -_

Claudius strikes first.

He only has one chance and he knows it, and he doesn't have the strength for an upward blow. He swings to the side instead, gets Four with a long slash across the collarbone, enough to make him reel but not enough to kill him.

He thinks of the woman who birthed him and wonders who she's rooting for.

He thinks of Lyme in the Control Centre, white-knuckled and thin-lipped, the unsaid prayer on her lips.

He finally allows himself to think of brownies.

Claudius wrenches his arm over, tilts the blade so the curved tip points up, and drives it straight through the gap under Four's jaw and up into his brain, just like his first kill test. He yanks back as he falls, and his sword catches against Four's jawbone and pulls him forward, driving the blade further up. Four sputters and spews out blood and foam and his eyes are white and red and wet and he makes a rattling sound that Claudius will hear in his dreams until the end of his days and then he collapses.

The cannon sounds.

Four's body lies across his waist. The blood soaks through his clothes like the poison in his veins. Claudius can't move. He can't scream. He can't beg. He hears the trumpets and the congratulatory message like they're miles away, and he hears the _whump-whump-whump_ of the hovercraft descending, feels the wind on his face, but he can't turn his head to see it.

"They won't help you until you're inside the hovercraft," Lyme told him. "Don't hold anything back for the last fight, but if you're injured after, dig deep because you have to make it onto the craft yourself."

His jaw is locked, and Claudius forces his tongue against his teeth, pushes until he tastes blood but finally he pries his mouth open and screams. The poison spreads but he can't let it stop here, he can't. There's a house in the Victor's Village for him, just for him, and Lyme is waiting. He can't fail her now. Claudius forces his arms to move, scrabbles at the ground but his hands slide on the ice and he can't, he can't make it, he's going to die here with fire in his blood and frost in his hair but then the Gamemakers give him one last reward.

The clouds drift apart as though an invisible giant is blowing them away, and the sun shines warm and strong in the blue sky. The ice recedes, and Claudius' flailing fingers find dirt and grass and he grips hard, drags himself up. There's lava in his body but he stands, pulls himself to his feet even though it feels like he left his skin behind him on the ground.

Moving spreads poison faster; they learned that in training, way back when, before the trainers injected them with snake venom and told them to climb the wall. Claudius was one of only three boys to make it over; the rest collapsed while the trainers clucked their tongues and administered the antidote. Moving makes it worse but he has no choice, and every step tears a piece of him loose but it doesn't matter, and when his boots finally hit metal Claudius shoves his arms in the air. The current freezes him in place, the ramp closes, and he collapses.


	6. Chapter 5: Yeah, I'm afraid

**Chapter 5: Yeah, I'm afraid, whadaya want from me?**

The sting of antiseptic in his nose brings him out of a darkness filled with fire and falling and screams. Claudius jerks awake, half sitting up, and he gasps in a reflex of pain and clutches at his ribs except there isn't any pain, not even the twinge of bruises. He's awake and in bed and the room is white, nothing but white - but that's not true, either, because on the white, standardized hospital bed is a blanket made of red fleece. Claudius rubs the fabric between his fingers and swallows hard.

"I read your file," says a voice beside his bed. "It said you don't like hospitals because there's too much white. It's the best I could do."

He can't decide whether it's creepy, impressive, touching, or all three that they noticed that and thought it relevant enough to make a note, but then Claudius registers who spoke and none of it matters anymore. He whirls around, and they might have fixed his wounds but he's still dizzy, and he nearly falls over again and has to work to focus his vision. For a second as everything spins and blurs he thinks he imagined it but no, Lyme is there, sitting in a chair, alive and real and smiling at him. "Drugs?" Claudius croaks out.

"Plenty," Lyme says, tapping the bag of fluid suspended above the bed and dripping through the tube into the needle taped to the back of his hand. "But if you mean am I hallucination, not a chance."

Claudius falls back against the thin hospital pillow, and he covers his eyes with his hand to hide the prickling. "Where are my brownies?"

Lyme laughs. "They're in the IV. Nah, you get those when we get home. You just have to get through this week first."

Right. The finale; the interviews, the closing ceremony, the meeting with President Snow, the coronation. Claudius tries to dredge up anxiety, but whatever they've given him keeps him at a pleasant, drifting lull. "Are you really here?"

"You mean officially?" Lyme's hand falls on his shoulder, her fingers strong and callused. "No. They'll film our 'live reunion' on stage once you've recovered enough not to collapse on top of Flickerman. Call this another example of Two privilege."

Claudius leaves his eyes closed and traces his fingers across his face, frowning when he feels nothing but smooth skin. "Scars?"

"Gone." Lyme sounds apologetic. "Any other year I would've fought to let you keep them, but not this year. We're trying to move away from the murderer note. I know you wanted a reminder, but." She pauses, and when she talks again Claudius hears the warmth in her words. "I did get you something."

It takes him a second, but when he makes the connection, Claudius yanks his arm out from under the blankets so fast he nearly punches himself in the eye. "Easy," Lyme says, and her voice is so different than it was before the Arena, when it had been professional and restrained, all affection doled out carefully to the best effect. "It's not going anywhere."

Claudius rubs his fingers over the ink on his wrist, and a sob chokes itself in his throat. "Thank you," he says.

"Usually the tributes are awake for that, and it happens after we get back to Two," Lyme says. She leans forward and covers his wrist with her hand. "I thought you deserved it now."

His head swims, and Lyme presses him back. "Sleep," she tells him, and like always, Claudius obeys.

She's there when he wakes up later, and there aren't any clocks in the room so Claudius can't tell whether it's five minutes or an hour or a day. Not much more than that, at least, or they'll be pumping him full of drugs and getting him onstage either way. Claudius turns on his side and everything slots together when she looks up from the paperwork in her lap and smiles.

"Whassat?" Claudius slurs, and grimaces. They've lowered his dose. He remembers he has a body now, and this time every part of it hurts. He's aware of bits of him he didn't know he had, never mind that they're connected to pain centres in his brain.

"We need to wean you off a little bit for now," Lyme tells him. "You can't be staggering onstage. As soon as you get home I'll get you whatever doses you need."

Claudius frowns. The drugs don't matter, not right now. "What's that?" he asks again, fighting for clarity.

"This?" Lyme lifts the folder in her lap. "This is for you. Arrangements for home, final sponsorship agreements. If there's anything you'd like in your house, you should let me know now."

"What?" His voice scratches in his throat. There's a cup of melting ice chips by the bed and he reaches for it, but it's too far. It's too far, which is ridiculous because earlier Claudius was driving a sword through another teenager's skull with poison running through his veins, and now he can't even grab a cup of ice that's three feet away.

Lyme sets the folder down. She fishes out an ice cube and puts it in his mouth, like he's a baby or an invalid, and Claudius would care except he doesn't, he really doesn't because the ice is like heaven on his tongue. "House," Lyme repeats, and she strokes his hair back from his forehead. "If you can't think of anything I'll do what I can, and either way it will be ready when you get back. Now's the time to tell me if you have requests."

Requests for his house. Claudius can't think of anything that's occupied his mind less in this past phase of his life. "What?" he says again, rolling the ice around inside his mouth. "What do people ask for?"

"I asked for a weight room," Lyme says with a small grin. "Tired of people making comments at the gym because I could lift more than they could. Brutus wanted furniture that wasn't too small for him like everything is here. You should see him try to fold himself into this stupid chair."

"Oh." Claudius wracks his mind, but all he can think of is his room in the Centre, not much bigger than his bed, the only things in it what the trainers gave him when he was seven and a few handfuls of things smuggled to him in secret after that. He can't fathom having a whole _house_ to himself. What's he supposed to do with it?

"I've already made a note for them to paint the walls in different colours," Lyme says, and Claudius can't help it. He sucks in a breath and digs his knuckle against his teeth. "Yeah, no white walls for you, so don't you worry. Anything else?"

The largest space Claudius has occupied since the house his birth parents lived was his rooms in the Games Complex, and even those had been absurdly large when Lyme left for the night. Claudius turns his head into the pillow. "Will you be there?"

It's a stupid, weak thing to say, but Lyme doesn't laugh at him. "Of course I will," she says. "Just like we said. You're my victor, and you're my job."

Claudius closes his eyes. "Then I guess - not too big. I don't need a lot of space. And warm."

"All right then." A pencil scratches across paper. "Cozy house, coloured walls, fireplace and lots of blankets, I'll look after the rest. But now I need you to look at me."

Claudius does, and Lyme's face has lost its softness even though the caring stays. "Claudius, do you know what they say about the Games? About the victors?"

He does. It's something they all whisper in the dorms when the number of trainees in their class dwindles and the Arena breathes hot and close against their necks. Saying it where a trainer could hear them meant laps and wall sits until their legs locked, pushups until their arms gave out. "The Arena is the easy part. If you're lucky, you won't survive," Claudius says, and even now he can't say it aloud at full volume. It's hushed, almost frightened.

"And the other one?"

Claudius lets out a breath. His blood flows chilled. "It's never over."

"You're absolutely right," Lyme says, and her expression is closed. "They're the biggest secret cliches we have. Everyone knows them, nobody says them, not out loud, and certainly not the Careers, but we all know them."

Claudius bites his lip until he tastes blood, and the tang calms him. "Are they true?"

Lyme presses her lips together. "The second one, definitely. This is just the start of it. The Capitol lets us live, and for the rest of our lives, what we do is pay that back with every breath we have. The first - well, that depends on how you look at it. For the outer districts, yes, always. But we have a chance. You have a chance." She touches his arm again. "I'm going to tell you something right now, and I want you to listen and file it away. It won't make much sense to you right now, but it will later, and I want you to hear it first when you have the capacity to hear it."

Claudius nods. Lyme's fingers tighten on his arm. "Someday you're going to ask me why I'm doing this. Why I don't let you do - whatever it is you want to do. And it's because you fought like a tiger to get out of a death trap that was even more out to kill you than every other year it would have been out to kill you, and you made it. Because you're amazing and brilliant and I promised you I'd be there when you got out and that's where I'm going to be. So whatever happens, I want you to remember that."

He shivers. He can't help it. "What will I ask you to let me do?"

Lyme's smile is brittle, and ghosts dance behind her eyes. "It's always different. What's the same is I'll always say no. And right now, I'm going to help you face the lion's den."

* * *

They dress him in a grey suit that matches his eyes, with a blue tie and vest that apparently make his dark blond hair look a little less like dishwater (they say, though not in so many words). The suit looks weird, off somehow; it doesn't seem like the kind of thing an eighteen-year-old would wear, even if said eighteen-year-old has just slaughtered a bunch of other teenagers and given themselves Games-legal status a year before non-victors reach majority at nineteen. Claudius can't put his finger on it until he hears one of the prep team whispering that it's an older style, and that's when Claudius gets it. The suit fits perfectly, made as it is to his exact measurements, but the style makes it look like he's a kid dressing up in his father's clothes. An interesting choice, and it rubs him a little the wrong way but he gets why they did it.

"You know what to do," Lyme tells him, and they'll be separated backstage to facilitate the 'live' reunion, so this is the last chance to go over interview details. Claudius still hasn't seen Nero.

"Yes ma'am," Claudius says, and his shoulder burns and his ribs ache and his arm feels like it's going to fall off but he can do this. He's a Career. He's a _Victor_.

The Capitol crowds roar when Claudius walks onto the stage and waves, and if his surviving didn't convince him that he played his part to perfection, that does. The Capitol audience is definitely out of touch with the other districts as far as victor popularity is concerned, but they still don't cheer for the villains unless they're over the top and give them a gimmick, like Enobaria and her gold-tipped teeth. Before the Capitol ruined it by filling the Arena with babies, before Lyme turned everything on its head, Claudius would have gotten desultory applause and nothing more. They would have accepted him, as they do all their victors lest they start to remember that the tributes who die were people, but they wouldn't have loved him.

Now, they cheer his name. Claudius falters for a second, looks out at the crowd and lets his mask slip, lets them see his surprise without turning it into an obvious 'who, me?' mugging. Caesar chuckles and takes the cue. "That's right, Claudius, they're all here to see you. Why don't you come here and have a seat by me?" Claudius thinks that Caesar must be either the most depressed or the most self-medicated man in all of Panem. Probably both.

"Wow," Claudius says when he sits down. His suit itches against the synthetic skin on his shoulder. Lyme has promised him nothing but soft clothes when he gets home until everything has grown back and isn't sensitive anymore. He just has to get through this. "This is all a little surreal."

"I'm sure it is," Caesar says indulgently, teeth shining every bit as bright as moonlight on a naked sword. Claudius shoves the image away. "Now, before we get started, I believe there's somebody who's been waiting very anxiously to see you."

"Not my stylist, I hope," Claudius says, holding up both hands. "Is he coming to throttle me? Because, I swear Caesar, you have no idea how much time it took to get me to look this good."

Caesar laughs, reaches over and shakes Claudius' knee in a good-natured gesture that sends fire shooting up his thigh. "Now, now, you think yours has it bad, he should talk to mine. This beauty doesn't just roll out of bed in the morning, you know." He turns one side, then the other, to the camera, and Claudius can't help wondering what little Caesar Flickerman thought he would do with his life when they asked him in kindergarten. He guesses not this, though who knows.

"But seriously, folks," Caesar says, and he twists around theatrically to look back at the wings. "There's someone very special who's wanted to see Claudius since the hovercrafts picked him up. What do you think, shall we bring her out here right now?"

The crowd cheers. Claudius sits up, ramrod-straight. "Her?"

"That's right." Caesar winks. "I think you've more than earned it, so let's get this party started, hm? Lyme, why don't you come on out here!"

Claudius stands when Lyme walks onto the stage, and with every stride, every movement, she reminds everyone that she's been doing this for over a decade, that she is in control and owns the stage, the lights, the crowds, everything. She wears a dark navy suit with grey accents, and not until she gets halfway there does it hit Claudius that they match in reverse. She wears the suit like she was born to do it, radiating power and assurance, and he pictures her at eighteen and wonders if her stylist tried to soften her by putting her in a dress at first. He tries to imagine those shoulders in a typical thin-strapped gown, arms with the muscles half again the size of his crossed in annoyance over her chest, and the thought makes him stifle a laugh.

He stops snickering to himself when Lyme pulls him in for a fierce hug, right there on the stage. Claudius gasps, and he fists his hands in her suit jacket and grips hard. Lyme combs her fingers through his hair, and they've already had their reunion but Claudius knows he has to make this look real, make every scrap of their secret story that he threw at them worth it. For the first time since taking a deep breath before volunteering, Claudius stops holding back. He has a split second to wonder what it must be like to be an outlying victor, to greet someone they care about without thinking about all the angles and every way to play it, before he stops _thinking_ and just _does._

Claudius doesn't expect to cry, but too late now.

At least - he thinks with the part of his brain still capable of it - it's not weak crying, he's not blubbering like a terrified baby rescued from a pack of dogs. It's ugly and messy and Claudius knows his eyes get red and his whole face turns blotchy and he's likely giving his stylist a heart attack right now, but he can't stop grinning, and he isn't sobbing and clinging or anything that might mark him as unworthy of his victory. He just can't stop his eyes from leaking, that's all. He laughs, and Lyme claps him by the side of the face and holds him, presses their foreheads together, and she's been doing this for years and he's not her first so she doesn't cry, but there's a shine in her eyes that Claudius knows isn't from the lighting and that's enough.

"I'm proud of you," Lyme tells him, too low for the microphones, but there are cameras blowing their faces up onto one-storey screens, and the lip-readers in the audience shriek. She pulls back, grips his face in both hands and kisses him right on the forehead, and Claudius stands up straight and tall and tries to look like someone worthy of that honour. "All right, you," Lyme says, "Go on, sit. You've earned it."

Lyme turns to go when Claudius sits, but she hesitates and glances back. That's all Caesar call her back with a hearty shout and invite her to stay, and so she walks back and sits on the arm of Claudius' chair. Claudius leans in, resting against her side, and Lyme loops her arm around his back and leaves her hand on the opposite shoulder, avoiding the stab wound.

"So, Claudius," Caesar says, angling himself in close but not close enough to intrude. "Is winning everything you hoped for?"

"Well, it's a little soon to tell, and I don't like to get cocky," Claudius says, and he glances up at Lyme and smiles. "But so far, yeah, I'd say so."

He catches himself before he says that he never really thought too far, because that's a very calculated, Career thing to say: that none of them do, after fourteen and the first time they stare at their hands, sticky and coated with drying blood that isn't theirs, that after that it really clicks that their lives aren't theirs anymore, that they belong to the Centre and the Capitol until the final breath leaves their bodies. That his life was always going to end at eighteen, that every moment up until then was borrowed time and every minute since is time gifted. Every word of that is true, but he can't say it, not here.

It ends up coming out in his answers anyway, whether he likes it or not. Caesar asks Claudius a few questions about what he plans to do once he's back in District Two, and the only thing Claudius can come up with is that he's going to sleep for the next three months, maybe, and maybe apply for mentor training after that. He doesn't say that he'll be spending all his time adjusting to a life where he can wake when he wants, eat what he chooses, and never work a day for the rest of his life if he damn well wants because in Two, he's paid his dues and that's all he will ever owe.

"Oh, but Lyme promised to make me brownies," Claudius says, and he gives her a cheeky grin.

Caesar rears back in his chair, his face a calculated mix of amusement, shock, and disbelief. "Really? Is this standard mentor procedure? Should we all be jealous?"

"Well, I've never been a Victor before so I can't tell you if it's standard," Claudius jokes, and the audience chuckles. "But you should definitely be jealous."

"Maybe wait before saying that," Lyme says, and she's keeping her responses short because this should be as much about Claudius as possible, but she still needs to speak instead of being the silent monolith. "You haven't tried them yet."

"Not exactly a pâtissière, are we?" Caesar asks.

"What the hell is that?" Claudius bursts out without thinking, and they all have a good, hearty chortle at his old-fashioned District Two charm. Caesar tells him what it means, and Claudius gives him an exaggerated dubious look. "Back home we just call that cooking," he says, and they all laugh again.

A few more minutes of banter, and then it's time for the replay. Lyme shifts in her chair as though it's uncomfortable, but Claudius is pretty sure she'd never move for that reason and he knows it when the movement puts her closer against his side. She doesn't hug him, or hold his hand, or tell him it will be okay. Over sixty tributes before him have done this without hand-holding, even the meat, and Claudius doesn't need anyone thinking he can't handle watching what he's lived through already. At least he's not as bad off as the ones who blanked out at the end and got everything slammed back in their face in front of all the viewers.

He watches himself in the training centre: putting himself at odds with the Pack, making small talk with the meat, jostling shoulders with Lyme on the way back to the tribute living areas. They show the other Careers in a huddling group, whispering and glaring and pointing at him with stabbing fingers, and cut away to Claudius launching a spear at a target as though he doesn't notice the growing threat behind him.

They play up him and Lyme at every possibility, and Claudius was there for all those moments but he didn't know quite how strong the need was on his face. It's a little terrifying, seeing it projected on the screen for everyone to see, but he has Lyme now so it doesn't really matter.

They play his goodbye with Lyme on the tarmac in full, and Claudius sucks in a hissing breath when he finally pulls back and walks away. Several sniffles come from the audience. When on-screen Claudius jokes about the brownies, Caesar lets out a soft 'oh' that Claudius can't tell is real or not, but it doesn't matter.

They show him on the hovercraft, silent and watchful, and the camera skitters sideways to Nikita, glaring at him as though her eyes could drill right through him. Then it's the Arena, all the tributes on their platforms, and it's bright and idyllic for those first sixty seconds, and Claudius holds his breath.

It really isn't that bad. Claudius has always been good at dissociating when he needs to, and turns out it's hard to panic when he's alive and safe and Lyme's hand is firm on his shoulder. They don't spend a lot of time on his cutting down the smaller tributes; they give most of the bloodbath airtime to his posturing with Four, and bring in music - low, ominous strings and a crash of brass - when Claudius looks up and sees the sky, predicts the lightning.

He was right about Nikita. One Boy rolled over, grabbed a knife and sliced her right across the throat while everyone was still recovering from the storm. Claudius is glad he was the one to kill him. He winces when she's killed, and his face is on the screen so they all see it. It won't be enough - never enough - for Nero, but it's all Claudius can give.

After that, it's easiest for Claudius to focus on the technical aspects of the film, to concentrate on the music, the camerawork, the editing, that turns his story - a messed up kid who decided from the age of seven that he would grow up to kill other kids and would rather die trying than not try at all - into something beautiful. They can't make him the underdog, not with eighteen twelve-year-olds running around and fourteen of them already dead by the time Claudius left the Cornucopia and that's not the story Claudius gave them anyway, but they make him likeable, attainable, and if he's not the little boy who desperately wants a mommy then they manage to make it forgivable that he's killing children to get there.

What's most surprising is that intercut with the tense moments in between battles when Claudius fights the traps in the Arena itself, they show footage of Lyme in the control centre. Not once in all the Games that Claudius can remember watching has he ever seen a mentor during the actual Arena time, but here they show her - sound muted - on the phone, talking with sponsors, staring at the screen with her fingernails torn to the quick. It's only a few seconds of video all told, less than a minute put together, but it's powerful, and Claudius becomes newly aware of Lyme's fingers pressed against his shoulder. Once he reaches up and grips her hand, and Lyme squeezes back.

They play the same progression of notes as the time One killed Nikita - sawing on the bottom string of the cello, a low, rising drumroll - when One crashes into Claudius in the fog; if Four is his final opponent, One is the loose cannon, the stray villain. There are no sweeping strings when he falls; only a blast of clear trumpet that sounds, for two notes, like the victory theme before moving on. Claudius wants to grimace, but he keeps it back; the only thing he allows himself is a small facial twitch that looks like he started to blink with one eye then changed his mind. It's not any more of a tragedy that the One asshole died over the little ones, but he knows they need to paint the other Careers as evil so that the audiences will have someone else to hate.

They play the basics from his time with Seven, but cut the part where he talks about his family; Claudius isn't surprised, since that only ever looked bad on him. They give Claudius the sympathetic strings when he does it, and Claudius' mouth tightens but he keeps it together.

From there on it's straight out to the end, with brief pauses for the Four girl and the Nine boy. They devote a full half a minute to Claudius receiving the final sword from Lyme, and the live camera swoops in on the ink on Claudius' wrist now so everyone in the audience knows exactly what they're seeing - but then it's right into the final fight with Four. They mark the coming battle with a clash of discords and a screech of some instrument Claudius doesn't recognize but that sets his teeth on edge.

The fight is messy, raw, and they keep switching between cameras to keep the action going and make it less horrific that these are two eighteen-year-olds cutting each other to pieces. If the frame keeps changing every half a second, maybe it won't stick. Claudius feels a little dizzy, but he digs his nails into his palms and holds on. What's the most surprising is that while he obviously knew how bad it was when he was living it, watching it just drives in how young he is, how much leaner than the other tributes, how close he was to losing. When his on-screen self finally staggers onto the hovercraft, Claudius finds himself letting out a long sigh of relief.

"Well, that certainly was exciting," Caesar says brightly as the lights come back up. "Now that you've seen it all, Claudius, what do you think? Anything to add about the experience as a whole?"

Claudius considers. "All my life I had a hard time being accepted anywhere. I spent a lot of time wondering if I was good enough, what 'enough' even meant and when I could stop. All I can say now is that I hope I've one my duty to my district and the Capitol, and that everything I do from now on is an even better extension of that."

"I'm sure you will," Caesar reassures him, and Lyme's hand is warm and solid and the lights are bright and he's alive.

Later Caesar asks the question that Claudius was hoping he wouldn't, but he and Lyme prepared for it anyway because it's like the Centre Exam, the one thing you hope they don't ask will be the one guaranteed they will. "So tell me something. What was going through your mind at the end, with the boy from District Seven?"

Claudius lets his face go solemn. "I was just glad it was me. And while I can't speak for him, I don't think he was kidding when he said he hoped it would be me, either. If I'd let him go, one of the others would have found him, and I can guarantee that the meeting with his family at the Victory Tour would be very, very different."

"Ah, so you have the ring, then?"

"I do." Claudius nods. "Not here, obviously, it's in a safe place, but I will give that back. I made a promise and I kept it. My ultimate promise was to myself, to get through these Games and find my family, but that doesn't mean I take the other ones any less seriously."

"I'm sure that's a comfort," Caesar says, and that's a lie but it's good enough. Claudius has come out of this without looking like a monster, and that's the absolute most he can hope for. If the viewers in the outlying districts are spitting at their screens, it won't be any more than they were before.

Caesar ask him a few more questions - was he afraid, was there a time he thought he wouldn't make it, what did he think about when he was alone at night - and then moves on to the wrap up. "Let's talk about that moment, just before the final cannon. A transition moment, if you will, when you stopped being the male tribute from District Two and became Claudius, our Victor." Claudius smoothes a wrinkle in his pants, but Caesar isn't looking at him. "Lyme, care to tell us your thoughts?"

Lyme takes a minute. The audience is dead silent as they wait. "Every tribute who walks out of the Arena is a miracle to their mentor," she says carefully. "It doesn't matter what their odds are going in. There's no better sound to a mentor than the victory trumpets."

"So what do you think?" Caesar asks, leaning back in his chair and resting his chin on his hand. "Is Claudius here going to get everything that he wanted when he was a little boy living alone in the snow?"

Lyme looks down, and she tightens her arm around his shoulders. Claudius welcomes the stab of pain because it reminds him where he is. "Absolutely," she says, and that brings the house down.

* * *

Claudius would probably not rather go back into the Arena for round two than meet with President Snow on his own less two days after walking out, but it's a close call. He's fresh from the interviews, a little woozy from the lights and the stares, and Lyme gave him a fresh dose of pain medication but he'd still rather be in bed.

The President is standing when the Peacekeepers order Claudius into the room; he's at his desk with an oversized vase of roses, picking over the blossoms and trimming dead leaves and petals. It's important for famous figures to have a motif, Claudius knows, but Snow takes it a little overboard. The room smells funny, almost like the Arena; some people whisper that they collect and drain the blood of all the dead tributes so Snow can use it as fertilizer, and Claudius isn't so sure that's nonsense now.

"So," says the president without turning. "Here's our Victor. You're quite the hero, aren't you."

"No sir," Claudius says immediately. "I'm just a piece in the Games, just like the others."

"Except you're here, and they're not, which means you're something more than that, hm?" the president gives Claudius a snake-eyed stare overtop the flowers.

"Just very lucky, sir," Claudius says, and he doesn't know what Snow wants or why Claudius is here. "Looks like the odds were in my favour this year."

"Cute," says Snow in a way that means the opposite, and he snips a dead bloom, tossing it into a trash can by his desk. "It was a very nice trick you pulled there, Claudius, making yourself out to be the noble killer and giving the outer districts a taste of their own hypocrisy. It was intriguing enough for us to give you the chance. The question is, what do you plan to do now that it's been given?"

Claudius isn't stupid. "Whatever you ask, sir."

"And if I asked you to make a public statement that every thing you said was a result of your mentor writing your lines for you?" Snow asks mildly. "If I asked you to place the onus of every semi-treacherous statement you hid with pretty words on her, to assure the country that you were just a frightened child desperate for acceptance and that she should be the one they hate, not you?"

It's like he's back in the Arena, watching the ice crawl over the grass, only this time it doesn't stop. This time it rolls right over him, encases him and crawls through his pores, into his blood, his organs. Claudius swallows. He tries to speak but his mouth is far too dry. "Sir?" he chokes out at last.

"I'm not going to, of course," Snow continues on, and Claudius feels the blood slick beneath his fingers as his nails tear into his palms. "That's just an example. I don't want you to think that just because you don't love your parents that I couldn't find a way to get to you if I don't like what I see from you. You're not immune, Claudius. No one is. Don't forget that."

Drum beats in Claudius' head, claws in his chest. If Snow says his name one more time - because he knows Claudius' name, yes he does - he thinks he might vomit. "Yes, sir," he says. "What do you want to see?"

"Absolutely nothing." Snow looks up, and his eyes pin Claudius to the ground as surely as a spear would hold him to the wall. "I want to see absolutely nothing. Go home and disappear. In six months you give the usual canned speeches on your Victory Tour and then you disappear again. You played us all for fools, Claudius, you robbed the people of their villain and I don't appreciate being made a fool. The only reason you're still standing is that your handler was smart about it."

"And her?" Claudius asks, and he shouldn't, it's playing right into Snow's thin-fingered hands but he can't help it. He has to know. "What will happen to Lyme?"

"If she proves her loyalty to the beliefs we all uphold, nothing," the president says, cutting loose another blossom, and Claudius watches the brown-tipped petals fall and scatter on the wooden tabletop. "Though her next tribute will not be as fortunate as you, I'm afraid. Not unless she bends the rules again to save him, but I wouldn't advise that. You might want to pass that message along."

Claudius thinks of being thirteen and being flung into the lake, feeling the smack of the icy water against his chest. Just like then, he fights the gasp reflex, tries to focus, keep his head clear. "Yes, sir," he says again.

President Snow turns his back and gives his full attention to his roses. "Go," he says. "In a year I don't want to remember who you are. If you're wise, you won't give me a reason to."

"Yes sir," Claudius says for the thousandth time, and Careers don't flee in the face of authority but he does, and once he's on the other side of the door he has to draw upon every bit of endurance conditioning he has to avoid sliding down the wall and collapsing into a ball.

"You okay?" Lyme asks him, when Claudius staggers back into his room in the compound. Claudius just shakes his head, unable to make his throat work anymore, and so Lyme fights him, pins him to the ground with her arm across his throat until his brain settles. "What happened" she asks, and she doesn't move. Her knee digs into his leg.

Claudius tells her. Careers have near-perfect recall beaten into them and Claudius wasn't on enough medication to mess with that, and he repeats the conversation verbatim. Lyme's face remains impassive until the end, when Snow damned her next tribute, and then not even she can keep the spasm of pain from her face.

"I'm sorry," Claudius says, and he turns his face away and squeezes his eyes shut. "I'm sorry, I told you it wasn't worth it -"

"Hey!" Lyme presses her arm harder across his throat, and Claudius' eyes fly open. "Wrong answer. You're worth it. You'll always be worth it."

"But the next one -"

"Is my problem, not yours, and he's not my problem yet. You are." Lyme rolls off Claudius, pulls him to his feet and grips him by the back of the neck. "And right now you have a party to go to, and it's my job to make sure you get through that without collapsing." Claudius nods, and she gives him a grim smile. "Good boy."

Still. After the stylists have finished with him, Claudius slips away from his prep team and sneaks back into the common area as quietly as he can. Lyme sits at the long dining table, elbows resting on the tabletop and her face buried in her hands. The lines of her shoulders are hunched and taut, her breath ragged and carefully controlled at once. Claudius presses himself back against the wall, hidden in the alcove by the door, and his insides twist as Lyme digs her fingers into her hair.

A door opens, and Nero pads out into the room, surprisingly quiet for his bulk, and his expression is stony but he takes the chair next to Lyme. He exchanges a few words with here - too quiet for Claudius to catch - and then his face pinches and Claudius watches the bitterness and betrayal leak out of his features, the resentment and hostility draining from his posture as something like defeat and resignation take their place. He places one hand on Lyme's shoulder, and she moves a fraction closer into his space, to his touch, without looking at him, and Nero rubs his thumb across her arm.

For a moment Claudius wonders if they're lovers, but then he sees it, the distance, the distinct flow of authority and comfort, the way Nero stays still but Lyme's shoulders sag, and the realization hits him hard. Lyme was Nero's tribute just over ten years ago. She went up against her mentor for him, took that sacred bond and broke it to save him, and Claudius wonders if this will be him in a decade, twisting what he knows of her to work against her and get his tribute out.

Claudius slips back out through the door, and this time he knocks to alert them to his presence. Nero's gone when Claudius comes in, and Lyme's expression is a careful neutral. "You're meeting the sponsors who invested in you," she says, as though nothing happened. "Make sure you turn on the charm and gratitude today, everything else should be fine."

Claudius swallows, but he knows what duty and loyalty means and so he pushes the thought back and does his best to forget he ever saw a thing. "Yes ma'am," he says, and turns on his picture-perfect Career smile.

"That's my boy," Lyme says, and Claudius stands up straight. He doesn't relax until she ruffles his hair, and right then Claudius determines all over again to make sure he's worth everything she's lost - everything she's going to lose - because of him.

* * *

Claudius loses track. He's a professional and he was trained for this but he loses track anyway, how many times he changes his clothes and says the same thing and stands in a room full of people who smile and giggle and paw at him, and all he wants is to keep a knife close to fend them off but he can't, he can't, he has to smile smile smile. At the end of each night Lyme drags him to bed, tugs off his shoes and pushes him into his bed. He's usually asleep before she finishes tugging the blankets over him, and he thinks he remembers her telling him she's proud, but then moments later the dreams return and she's trying to talk to him from the bottom of a pit of snakes so he really can't trust his memories on this one.

He keeps it up, and he wonders if every victor has this many galas to attend or if Snow is just trying to break him, because every time right when Claudius is ready to beg Lyme to let him go home it's Snow in his face, Snow with his eyes and his teeth and his roses and the smell of blood, asking if Claudius would like to go home, and when Snow asks if you want to go home you say sir no sir and Claudius does, he does until his vision dissolves into sparkles and every word strikes him like knives beneath his skin.

But then, finally, it's Lyme's arm around his shoulders and her fingers in his hair and her voice in his ear: "That's it, kiddo. You're done. We're going home."

It's enough to give him that last spurt of energy, like the final rush of strength to his limbs that allowed him to shove his sword through Four's brain. Claudius powers through the final goodbyes on the platform, collapses on the train with his forehead pressed to the window, and feels like he doesn't take a breath until the open mine shafts and craggy mountains of District Two swing into view as the train hums along the tracks at an excruciatingly-slow 250 miles per hour. When he steps out into the square to greet the cheering crowds, Lyme's hand firmly on his shoulder, Claudius takes a deep breath of dust and pine and rock and nearly bursts into tears like a snivelling twelve-year-old from the meat districts.

_Home_, he thinks, but then a voice answers him: _No, not yet._

It's not home until he, Lyme and Nero walk into the Victor's Village and the gate closes behind him; until Lyme leads him down the winding path dotted with miniature mansions filled with people just like him; until she shows him to a red-brick house half the size of the others that looks like everything Claudius could have drawn in secret as a child with his door locked and his arm curled protectively around the paper, and hands him a set of keys.

"Now I'm home," Claudius says aloud, his voice full of wonder.

Lyme squeezes his hand. "Yeah, kid," she says. "You are. For the rest of your life."


	7. Chapter 6: It messed me up

**Chapter 6: It messed me up, need a second to breathe**

Claudius falls to his knees, screaming, his hands drenched with blood. Seven's guts lie stinking on the ground next to him, steaming in the cold air. A thousand voices whisper _monster_ in his ear and laugh, the sound like the silver rasp of knives when the blades scrape against each other. Seven's still alive, eyes wide, and his mouth works and the blood bubbles out and there's no sound but Claudius can hear it just as well as if he spoke: _why, why, why, I thought we were friends_ -

"He doesn't have friends," whispers the wind and the thousand voices, sweeping round and caressing Claudius' cheek with red-tipped razor nails. He sees himself reflected in the shards of a thousand broken mirrors, twisted and unloved and alone. "He's a monster. No friends for little monsters when they're children, no friends for big monsters when they're grown. No friends at all. Just death, and blood, and darkness."

Claudius shakes his head _no no no_ and this isn't right, this isn't right at all, he didn't slice Seven open and let him bleed to death like this, he made it quick, like he promised, because Claudius is a monster but he still keeps his promises and if he keeps his promises then maybe he won't be a monster until the day he dies - and the wind twists itself like fingers in his hair and yanks, and the sky opens like a scab splitting when the muscles pull and the skin stretches and he's flying flying through -

Claudius jerks awake because there are fingers in his hair, real ones, but they're not pulling, they're sifting, combing, and fingertips press at his temples and push away the nightmares and there's a pillow under his head and soft, soft blankets over top of him and someone is speaking in a quiet, firm voice - _it's okay, come back, it's okay D, it's okay_ - and then he remembers. He's not in the Arena. He's safe in bed in his new house with someone who loves him, and he never has to go back in the Arena ever again.

There are drugs in his system and hands in his hair, and Claudius turns toward the voice and nuzzles the hand near his face. "Mom?" he asks, drugged and delirious, and that's not right, there's something wrong with that, but the voice just says 'Right here' and that's enough that he can breathe.

"Am I a monster?" Claudius asks, and his hands grope at nothing in the darkness.

She finds his hand and links their fingers. "We're all monsters here," she tells him, and the relief is sharp, like a wave of water slapping at his chest.

He sleeps.

The Arena is a sliver under his fingernail, a jagged pebble in his shoe, a speck of dust in his eye and a tickle in his throat. It's everywhere and nowhere at the same time. It's there, dancing in the corner of his vision, and gone when he turns. It stalks his dreams, though the medicine Lyme gives him robs him of his memory of them and leaves him gasping awake in the morning, sweating and twisted in the sheets with no recollection of why. It turns food to the ash that floated from the river of fire that killed the Four girl, turns everything he drinks into the Four boy's blood as it soaked through Claudius' shirt and stuck the fabric to his chest.

Claudius never _wanted_ to kill anyone. He always knew that he would, and he got through his kill tests with some of the highest scores in his year, but he did it professionally, dispassionately, with just the right amount of emotional distress. He didn't relish it, didn't seek it out; even in the depths of his Arena-madness he never crossed that line. Now he's safe, safe in his cozy house that's more like a cottage, complete with warm-coloured walls and comfortable couches and a giant fireplace in the main room, and Lyme is there to give him his medicine and sit with him whenever he needs and tell him that he's perfect.

It makes no sense that the urge crawls through his fingers now, itching and twitching and twisting and churning until Claudius feels like it's the night before his Centre Exam all over again. He'd stayed up studying the death list and the protocols and the propaganda and the history for the millionth time, and he'd even picked the lock on one of the supply cabinets to get at a bottle of stimulants. He popped one every half-hour until his mind buzzed and he swore his blood vessels were trying to crawl out of his body like snakes.

Now the Arena sits on his shoulder, talons digging into his skin, and Claudius curls in on himself because he doesn't want Lyme to see it. He takes the pills that she gives him, sleeps when she tells him, curls against her side on the couch and dozes while she runs her fingers through his hair and reads her book. He asks her if she's bored. She tells him not to be such a dumbass.

It's not all bad, especially at first, though it's all more of a daze than anything. Lyme makes good on her promise of brownies the second day back - Claudius spends the first day dead to the world, bundled in blankets on the floor in front of the fire, his hand curled around Lyme's ankle - and she gives Claudius the bowl of ingredients to stir and they watch TV while they bake. Turns out brownies are just chocolate goo cooked vaguely until it holds together, and it's so rich after a decade of Centre-controlled diet that Claudius can only eat one before his stomach protests, but it's the most delicious thing he's eaten in his entire life.

It's not all bad, really it isn't. Lyme brings him flowers from the backyard of one of the Victors who chose gardening as her Talent, and she leaves the windows open so the warm summer breeze filters through the house. Summer in Two, up in the mountains, is the nicest in all of Panem, Claudius thinks, and he'll fight anyone who thinks otherwise. Screw District Four with its humidity; what good is having an ocean if you can't actually get out of it without melting. The agricultural districts aren't any better off, all mugginess and mosquitos, and in Twelve he's heard that in summer the whole Seam reeks of corpses and the putrefaction of the nearly-dead. But in the Victors' Village in Two it's warm without being stifling, and at night the air cools off just enough that Claudius can roll up in the soft sheets and sit close to Lyme on the sofa without feeling sticky and overheated.

It's not all bad, until a couple of weeks in when the Arena takes up every inch of Claudius' concentration. He spars with Lyme, just like she promised, and at first it was amazing and settled his mind into place but now it doesn't; now there's something missing, and he takes that part of himself and shoves it down deep. He's the spider hidden at the centre of the head of lettuce just like the time in the cafeteria at the Centre, when a whole bunch of kids got rounded up and shouted at because how the hell could they have gotten their orange beads yet scream like little babies because of a damn bug.

Lyme said everything he does in the Arena is forgiven, and maybe it is - it didn't look forgiven when he had to shake Nero's hand at the closing ceremony, even if Nero said good job - but this is after, isn't it, and that's different. He's supposed to leave the Arena behind and start to heal, but Claudius can't leave it - or maybe it can't leave him - or maybe they're like lovers, twined and tangled after a long night together, and the hunters are coming but they can't disentangle fast enough and they get an arrow through their skulls.

That doesn't make sense, but nothing makes sense with the Arena pressing out behind his eyeballs.

Finally, three weeks in, Claudius slips away. He wakes up late at night, pulls on his clothes and shoes and sneaks out the front door, quiet quiet quiet like a mouse, like a snake, like a blade against a sleeper's throat right before the blood. He walks on the grass to avoid his sneakers crunching in the gravel, and he wanders through the darkened Village until he finds the house he wants.

The rumours are that Enobaria can't sleep a full night, that she takes her rest in twenty-minute shifts and that's one reason why she's so crazy. Claudius thinks that's a load of crap, but she opens the door after only a minute or so of Claudius' super-quiet knocking, so who knows.

"Oh hey, it's the baby," she says, and the moonlight glints off her teeth. "Your mentor know you're here, baby?"

Claudius shifts from foot to foot. "I want you to fight me," he says, and his voice sounds high and young and Enobaria raises a dark eyebrow and juts her hip. "I need - I need it. I can't spar like this with Lyme. Please."

Enobaria shakes her head. "Not interested. Find somebody else to hit on."

"I'm not hitting on you!" Claudius hisses, though in Two that is usually what the offer to spar together means, and he fists his hand in her shirt before he realizes what he's doing. Enobaria doesn't stop him, doesn't reach out and grab his wrist and snap the bones in two like Claudius knows she could - like he learned himself when he was nine and watched some bigger kids do it in training. She just gives him a long look that says he better think twice about what he's doing. "I just - it won't go away. It's inside me and I need to get it out and maybe if I can get it out of my system then it'll be gone for good and I can sleep. Please. Please fight me."

Enobaria narrows her eyes, studying him, and Claudius can't even imagine what he looks like, hollowed eyes and gaunt cheeks and hair all over the place. She sucks on her teeth, thoughtful, and licks away the blood when the action slices her lip. "All right," she says, and that's that.

The first time it's nothing much. Claudius is exhausted and skirting the edges of his sanity, and it doesn't take long for Enobaria to beat him, to get her teeth inches away from his throat and her nails into his forearms. He fights her anyway, biting and clawing and kicking, and he doesn't hold back at all, not one dark, twisted bit of it. He gouges at her eyes with his fingers, tears at her shoulder with his teeth, but when Enobaria finally kicks him hard enough that he can't get up and she has to drag him to his feet and brace him against the wall, Claudius feels like he's just had a whole bottle of wine to himself. "Don't get lost, now," Enobaria says as she shuts the door behind him, and it takes Claudius almost half an hour to stagger back to his house and collapse into bed.

The next night he fights longer, harder, and he has to push his shoulder back into place when they're done. Enobaria tosses him a glove to bite down on when he does it. He switches to the other side of the couch when sitting with Lyme to lessen the pressure.

The third night they use knives. Enobaria slices him deep across the ribs, and Claudius goes down right there on her floor, clutching his side and bleeding out onto the hardwood. Enobaria steps over him and goes back to bed, leaving him there, and finally Claudius hauls himself up and helps himself to every bandage in her medicine cabinet, cussing her out the whole way.

"So," Lyme says at breakfast.

"So," Claudius says back a few seconds later, when it's clear she's not going to say anything else. "Jam?"

Lyme ignores him. "Anything you want to tell me?"

Claudius swallows. "I don't think so," he says, and the lie stings all over him like rolling through a patch of nettles. It feels wrong but he doesn't know what else he can do. Lyme wouldn't understand. She's his mentor and she promised to be his family but that was before, and Claudius knows now that she was wrong, he was wrong, everyone was wrong, and sometimes little boys who set fire to their mother's clothes grow up and don't get any better.

"Really." Lyme crosses her arms, and Claudius is shocked to realize that she's _pissed_, she's actually, seriously angry at him, and he's never seen that before. He's seen her serious, disapproving, seen her full-out Games face meant to scare away the interviewers and the other mentors and any questions, but he's never seen her this mad, not at him. "Because I might have something to say about that."

And it's not fair, that she's getting on him after Claudius spent half an hour bleeding out onto Enobaria's floor and no one cared or noticed. It's not fair that she's angry with him after Claudius has done nothing but what she's told him to, day after day, night after night, and he killed for her and he bled for her and he hasn't slept for real in weeks and it's all for her, every day of his life since he was ten and learned her name has all been for her and she doesn't care just because he broke a rule.

"Say whatever you want, I've got nothing to add." Claudius snaps, and there's the Arena back again, buzzing in his ears, and if Enobaria slashing him open doesn't keep it away then what will. He fights back a hysterical screech of laughter by pushing a whole piece of toast in his mouth and choking it down. The crusts stab his throat and he winces.

"Oh _really_." Lyme stands up fast enough to send her chair scraping back along the kitchen floor tiles, and she drags Claudius up by his shoulder and hauls him into the room he plans to use as a gym once Lyme okays it. Which she probably never will because he'll never be worthy of it, and that's something Claudius realizes more and more with every passing minute as the need to grind someone's bones into pieces beneath his boot digs itself deeper into his brain.

He's about to say something snarky when Lyme's foot lashes out and catches him right across the ribs. "Ow!" Claudius yelps, and the next thing that tears itself out of him is a torrent of profanity right from the dregs of training.

Claudius has barely enough time to think that he's being stupid before Lyme is on him again, knocking his legs out from under him so that he has to twist to avoid slamming into the floor like a trainee on his first day of big kid sparring. It really is stupid. How he can fight his entire life for something, have it be the thing driving air through his lungs, pumping the blood through his heart, since before he could count to a thousand, only to screw it up now after everything's been handed to him, well. That's just proof that Claudius is a screw-up, isn't it, because he has the house and the mentor and the brownies and he's managed to piss all over that and throw it in the garbage.

He's almost glad she found out. Better for him to face reality now than fool himself for weeks.

"So let's talk," Lyme says, and Claudius snarls and none of this makes sense and he doesn't even know why he's mad. "I'm going to give you a list of things that aren't okay, stop me if you think I've got this wrong. You've been holding back and not telling me things. You've been sneaking out. You've been coming back looking like somebody ran you over. You've been lying to me. You wanna argue any of this?"

Claudius tries to fight her, but it's even worse than with Enobaria because Lyme is bigger and she knows him, she knows every move he makes before it even crosses his mind. The only reason it isn't over in two seconds is because Lyme allows it, and she makes it very clear by the deliberate way she allows it to keep going when Claudius knows she could have finished him.

She slams him against the floor and pins him. "Why did you sneak out to fight with Enobaria?"

And of course she knows. This is the part where she gives up because it was cute when Claudius was probably going to die but she can't handle him now, not the part where he's hers twenty-four hours a day. This is the part Claudius didn't think about for all the years when this was just a floating goal ahead of him.

He doesn't answer, and Lyme presses his shoulders against the floor. "Why Enobaria?"

"Because she understands!" Claudius bursts out, and it's betrayal and bile and he turns his head to the side and grits his teeth.

"And I don't." Lyme's voice is low and dangerous, and her foot settles more firmly against his shin.

"Enobaria is fucked up," Claudius says, and that's not an over-the-line thing to say because it's true. "Just like I'm fucked up. I couldn't fight like that with you. I didn't want you to see it. If you saw it you'd know why."

"Tell me," Lyme says, and she's in his face and Claudius can't shake her off, and why is she doing this? Why won't she just _leave_?

"Because!" Claudius struggles, and he pushes at her arm holding him down but he can't budge her, he's too skinny and too fresh and she's too perfect, like always, he's unworthy and weak and she ruined her career for this. "Because I'm fucked up and ugly and there's nothing left of me. It's all the Arena and that's all there ever was."

"Wrong," Lyme says, and she lets Claudius up just long enough to knock him down and pin him again when he charges her. "Dead wrong." Claudius just shakes his head, and Lyme narrows her eyes. "Okay," she says. "Show me."

Claudius does.

He fights her like he never allowed himself to fight in the Arena because he couldn't, because he had to play the one the audience would like instead of the ugly little boy who nearly killed a classmate when he was nine, sending him to Medical with a snapped vertibrae. He fights like every inch the villain now, low and sneaking and nasty and dirty, and any minute now Lyme will throw him off, tell him he's right, he's too crazy for her and for the Village and she's going to call someone to lock him away where he belongs.

She doesn't.

Instead Lyme gets him pinned again, holds one hand at his side with her foot placed firmly on his wrist, the other arm at the level of his shoulder held in her iron grip. She braces her free arm across his throat, pressing down until the blood rushes to his head. "No," she says, calm, like they're sitting in a cafe drinking tea instead of scrapping on the floor like savages.

"What 'no'?" Claudius asks, his voice shrilling up into the hysterics range.

"No everything running through your mind right now," Lyme says, and she tightens her grip on his wrist and digs her arm harder against his throat. "I don't care how ugly you get, how deep you think you are. I'm coming in after you every single time."

Claudius gasps, and he tries to shift to throw her off but just like the last time he can't. "You shouldn't. You should send me away where they know how to deal with people like me."

"Spoilers, kid, that's exactly where you are and that's exactly where I am." Lyme lets up on his throat enough that Claudius can get himself a good lungful of air before she's back again. "I didn't watch you fall into quicksand and crawl through fire and everything else they threw at you just to toss you aside because that came out with you. You can be broken as hell and it doesn't matter because I'm going to put you back together. Because that's my job and you're my kid and there is nothing, nothing in the world more important than this, right now."

Claudius shakes his head, but at the same time he feels a little like when the One girl's cannon fired and he knew he only had to do this one more time. "You can't fix me," he says, challenging.

Lyme digs her knee into his thigh and bears down harder. "Yeah, I can," she tells him. "And you can test me all you want, every damn day if it makes you feel better, but it won't make a bit of difference because I call the shots here, not you. I'm your mentor and you're my kid and that makes me the boss. That means you don't get to decide for me whether you're worth it, because I know best and you're a fresh victor who runs into walls when he tries to get up before nine."

"But-" The itch starts up in his brain again, and it's like scratching at his back and almost reaching it but not quite.

"Nope," Lyme says, nonchalant as hell, but her eyes are dead serious and she fixes Claudius with her gaze and it's like she's pinned him right through the centre of his forehead. "I can do this all day, D."

It takes him a second to get that 'D' is him, that Lyme is using a nickname on him that has nothing to do with his rages or his violence or obsession like any of the ones back in training. A second later he realizes that she means it, that if he wants to lie here and fight her all day she'll do it. She'll hold him down and pin him to the floor until he's tired of it, and if he starts up when she lets him up then she'll just hold him down all over again.

"There is _nothing_," Lyme says, eyes boring into him, "that I haven't seen. Nothing you can do short of killing me, and kiddo, I'd love to see you try." She narrows her eyes. "I said goodbye to you on that tarmac and I didn't take a full breath until you fought your way home to me. I'm not giving you back now. So tell me." She bears down on him and he can't move, can't move at all. "Who's in charge?"

Something breaks inside him with the sharp, stinging relief of a bone sliding back into place, a sword striking true. "You are," Claudius says, the words finding home like the _snick_ of a knife into the bullseye.

"Damn right," Lyme says. "So you get feeling like you wanna fight mean, you tell me and we'll fight mean, but after I'm gonna pick you up, put you back on the couch, make you some soup and tell you that you're wonderful, you got that?"

Claudius tries not to cry because he's done enough of that, plus he's on his back and that just means he'll get a nose and throat full of phlegm and that's just gross, but no matter how much he tries to stop it, the sobs just rip themselves from him.

"I love you," Claudius gasps out, and he's trying so hard to stop crying that the words just slip out without him noticing. And there it is, that's the other end of the spectrum of things he's tried to hide from Lyme, because it's one thing to pretend they're a family when he's ten years old and his room is locked. He's an adult now, and a Victor, and there are things it's okay to think about your mentors and things that are just plain wrong.

"I know, and that's good," Lyme says, and she still hasn't backed off, still hasn't moved to let him up. Her arm lies flat across his throat. "'Cause I love you too, kid."

She lets him up this time, but it's just to pull him into her arms for a hug before dragging him up and over to the couch. She gets him bundled up in blankets before disappearing and coming back with bandages, salve and muscle relaxant cream, and Claudius protests for all of about two seconds before giving up. He falls asleep as Lyme bandages his ribs, and he wakes up with his head on her knees and her fingers combing through his hair.

Claudius groans as pain stabs him from every direction. "Feel like shit," he mumbles.

"I figured." Lyme ruffles his hair. "Stay there, I'll get you your meds."

She has to poke him awake again to take them, and Claudius slides under almost immediately after. When he crawls awake again it's after dark and Lyme is still there, going through a stack of paperwork on her lap.

By six weeks in, Claudius is feeling a little more human, or at least less like his head is stuffed with spiderwebs and nightmares. His drugs counsellor says he'll need to stay on his nightmare medication for at least three months before they start thinking about tapering him off, but the pain meds lessen and he starts being aware of more things while he's awake.

Like the day that Lyme's phone rings in the middle of the afternoon, and within ten seconds of answering it her face turns to stone. "Okay," she says in a low voice. "No. No, it's fine, I'll deal with it."

Claudius looks up from his book, glad for the distraction. He's been trying his hand at reading since he hasn't done any of that since school, but he's not surprised to find that he doesn't actually like it any better now. Being a Victor didn't magically fix the way the words swim around on the page and laugh at him when he thinks a word is "dog" but two seconds later it turns into "god". Though once he realizes it does make President Snow's autobiography make a lot more sense. "What's the matter?"

Lyme hisses through her teeth. "Your mother is here."

Claudius' entire body goes taut. "What? Where?"

"Outside the Village, making a fuss at the gates." Lyme stands up and grabs her shoes from by the door. "She's been applying for an entry pass since you got back, but I've kept denying it. I guess she got tired of the runaround."

Claudius had not even considered that. "But I thought she signed away all rights to me when -" when she left him, he thinks, but he doesn't say it.

Lyme hesitates halfway through pulling on a sneaker. "Actually, once the Centre realized what happened they tried to contact her, but after she ignored their phone calls they didn't bother trying to track her down. They took custody of you in her absence and you signed yourself over when you entered Residential, which is fully legal, but she never officially gave you up on paper."

"Oh." Now Claudius feels the squeeze of panic in his chest, and the book falls to the floor, pages flattening beneath the cover's weight. "Could she actually make a case to live here?"

"No," Lyme says sharply, and she rolls her sleeves up to the elbow. She usually wears them long to cover the tattoo on her wrist - Claudius asked her why, and she said she isn't ashamed of it, but sometimes she doesn't want to look at it every day - but now she lets it show, the ink stark against the powerful muscles in her arms. "No, she can't. You're an adult; you can say whether she stays or goes, and I'm your proxy which means I'm authorized to speak for you. I'm going to tell her off."

"Wait," Claudius says, and Lyme frowns. "Let her in. I want to see her."

"You don't have to. I'm happy to handle it." She bares her teeth when she says _happy_ and Claudius thinks, oddly, of vulture tearing at a corpse.

"No. I want to see her. I mean, I don't _want_ to see her, but I - I want to look at her again. Last time I had to focus on being ready for the Games so I couldn't pay attention, but I want to now." Claudius swallows. "Just not alone. I want her to see that."

Lyme nods once, her mouth pressed thin. "Oh, it won't be alone, all right," she says, and takes out her phone again. When Claudius asks who she's calling, Lyme grins, mean and feral. "Brutus."

Claudius laughs outright, relief sharp in his chest, because if anyone has the trophy in being big and terrifying even to other Victors, never mind civilians, it's Brutus. Claudius is a little afraid of him himself. "Really? I didn't think he liked me all that much." Not that he thinks Brutus _dis_likes him, but Brutus' default is a sort of unimpressed neutral, and it takes a lot to elevate that.

"Just because he's not chummy doesn't mean he doesn't like you. He likes all the kids who walk through that gate by default of you managing to make it here," Lyme says, the phone against her ear. "What he doesn't like is outsiders. Especially not ones trying to take advantage of our system." She holds up one finger. "Yeah, Brutus, hey, you busy? - Well I know you're always busy, but can you give me say half an hour?" Claudius grins a little, and Lyme rolls her eyes theatrically at him and opens and shuts her hand in a yapping gesture. "No, the kid's mom's here. Yeah. No. Well, she sure thinks so. No. Okay. Thanks." Lyme flicks her fingers at him. "Okay, D, up. We're doing this at my place."

Claudius obeys, just glad he felt like getting dressed today, though his hair is a lost cause. He hasn't bothered getting it cut or anything since the stylists had their go at it at the closing ceremony, and Claudius scrubs his fingers through it before giving up. "Why yours?"

"Because this is your house," Lyme says, and she gives Claudius a look that nearly knocks him backwards from the force of her anger. "Your safe space. She doesn't get to invade that. If you choose to let her come here then that's up to you, but not before."

Claudius takes a second to bask in the knowledge that people actually give a damn about him and his comfort before Lyme beckons him out the door.

"Brutus is bringing her," Lyme says when they reach her house, and Claudius tries imagining what that must look like, getting greeted by a wall of muscle that has one thought and one facial expression and both of those are 'I really don't like you'. Lyme catches his expression and nods. "Yeah. Hopefully that knocks her down a peg before she gets here."

Claudius grins when Lyme opens the door to her weapons cabinet, leaving the swords in plain view. She normally leaves it locked, both because it's a bit overkill to have weapons actually hanging on her walls no matter what the civilians think, and also because Claudius still gets a little twitchy at the sight of them. It's all right now, though, since he can code them in his head as nothing but a means of intimidating his mother instead of being used for their actual purpose. "Subtle," he says, and Lyme winks at him.

They wait, and Claudius picks at a loose thread at the bottom of his jeans, legs tucked up under him, to give himself something to do. Usually when he gets fidgety Lyme lets him have a knife to play with - she sits next to him and watches him to make sure he doesn't do anything he shouldn't - but he knows he can't do that now. It isn't as though he hates his mother enough to think he'll fling a knife at her, but the hole inside himself where she used to be is not a place he wants to enter with a weapon in his hand. It comforts him to know that even if he asked, Lyme would say no.

Claudius finds himself watching Lyme put on her scary-face. He hasn't seen it since the Games and it's even more startling now after weeks of seeing her smile, how her expression hardens and her eyes narrow and her body language shifts entirely. Normally Lyme stays on the unassuming side, which is impressive for a woman whose arms are the size of Claudius' calves, but now she squares her feet and shoulders, crosses her arms so her biceps stand out.

"You're really scary," Claudius says, impressed, and Lyme flashes him a grin that ruins the whole effect before putting her unimpressed face back on.

Lyme is fully in the zone by the time Brutus pounds, once, on the door with his fist, and she opens it but doesn't stand back. "That her?" she asks, biting off the words.

"Looks like," Brutus says in matching monosyllables. "Heard her all the way from my house, so I'm guessing."

Lyme looks up and down, and with her and Brutus the sizes of houses standing in the way Claudius can't actually see, but he hears Lyme's dismissive click of tongue against her teeth before she turns. "D, can she come in?"

"I guess," Claudius says, and it's absolutely stupid but his heart speeds up a little.

Lyme nods and steps back, and Brutus escorts the woman in. She looks the same as when Claudius saw her at the Reaping, tense and twitchy and like she can't decide on a facial expression, and this time Claudius has the time and mental energy to devote to studying her. He looks at her hands and wonders that he ever thought them terrifying - they're small, Brutus could wrap his entire hand around her fist - but then she clenches her fingers and Claudius' stomach tightens in response and oh yeah. Sometimes things don't make sense.

"Stop," Lyme says when she takes a step toward the couch. "You can stay there. That's as far as you're going."

"You mean you're not even going to let me sit with my son?" his mother demands, and there's that voice again, the one that feels like a fingernail scraping down Claudius' spine.

"Nope," Lyme says, slowly, deliberately, and she moves over to the sofa and sits next to Claudius in the same manner, draping her arm along the back of the couch. "Say what you have to say."

"I just think this is ridiculous. It's kidnapping, or fraud, or something," she says, and she wrings her hands in front of her. "It's bad enough you took my child from me for all those years -"

Brutus coughs, and if he were a different sort of person it would be the type that hides the word 'bullshit' in the middle. "Really. That's what you're goin' with."

She flushes, and Claudius thinks that if nothing else, he got his balls from her. Certainly not from Jeremy, and he doesn't think much of his mother at all and when he does it isn't nice, but he'll give her credit for that. It takes a special kind of suicidal insanity to waltz in and talk about the Centre stealing the kid she dumped on their doorstep and refused to acknowledge ever again.

"Fine," she snaps. "But you can't deny that I have the right to be here and the right to a house. The Capitol makes those rules, not you. Family has the right to move in with the victor, and since I'm the one who let you have him and I forfeited the stipend, I'm entitled to my share."

"The stipend is for taking care of the kids before the Centre takes them," Brutus growls. "You woulda lost that anyway even if you hadn't."

"He slandered me in front of everyone in the country!" she tries again. "I'm being shamed by my neighbours! It's affecting my husband's work! He owes me recompense!"

"Ain't slander if you deserve it," Brutus says, and he hasn't moved. He's a rock between Claudius and his mother and Claudius is very, very glad he's on his side. "We got the medical bills that say you do."

"Besides," Lyme says, and her arm is around Claudius' shoulder and she lifts her hand as though she's examining her fingernails, leaving her tattoo in full view. "You're not entitled to _a_ house. You'd be entitled to _his_ house."

Claudius actually has to stifle a laugh as that sinks in, as the horror and memory twists her face. "I don't think any doors have locks, either," he says, looking at Lyme. "Do they?"

"Don't think they do," she says, thoughtful, and she's heard the story of five-year-old him with the knife by his mother's bed and she wasn't impressed. Claudius lets his smile turn nasty. "And, of course, the house is _in_ the Village. I heard you couldn't even sleep in the same house as a five-year-old who wanted attention. How you expect to pay for all the sleeping pills so you can sleep in a whole village full of murderers?"

"It's true," Claudius says, as though the thought just occurred to him, and he echoes the words that he can't remember if Lyme said or not because he heard them in a dream. "You always said nobody but monsters would ever want me, and you were right. We're all monsters here."

Brutus doesn't say anything, and neither does Lyme, but they both stare, and the colour drains out of his mother's face. He can actually see it happen, until she's left pale and drawn in on herself.

"Yep," Brutus says finally. "Kid's an adult now, and there's a statute of limitations on your status as a family member." He says the legal term in a way that sounds like 'fuck you, yeah I know smart words too', and Claudius is nearly giddy. "So this is how it goes. You can live with the kid, or nothing. And it's his choice whether you do."

Lyme lets her hand fall to the nape of Claudius' neck, her fingers working through his hair. "What do you think, kid?"

Claudius stares at his mother and tries to dredge up the feeling of fear that her face gave him for years afterward, that dug its claws into him when he saw her now, but it's gone. All he feels is Lyme, and Brutus, and the entire Village and the wall and the guards and the barbed wire and everything keeping him safe from her.

"No," Claudius says, and it's like the victory trumpets and the soft red blanket on his hospital bed and his first taste of brownies all over again.

"And that's all he's gotta say," Brutus says. Lyme wraps her arm around Claudius and pulls him close against her side. "This is the part where you get out."

She looks, for a second, like she's going to fight it - her jaw clenches and her feet dig into the floor - but then Brutus unfolds his arms and lets his hands hang at his side, flexing his fingers, and she gasps and flinches back. "Fine!" she shouts. "I was right. You are monsters, all of you. I hope you take good care of him."

"That's my job," Lyme says, and she stands, tugging Claudius up with him and leaving her arm around him, but she's bared her teeth now. "_Taking_ _care_ of people."

That's all it takes. Claudius doesn't relax until the door shuts, and then all his breath escapes him in a rush. He's grateful for Lyme holding him up.

Brutus rolls his eyes. "I'll escort her out."

"Thank you," Claudius bursts out. "For helping."

Brutus just shakes his head. "You're one of us, kid. It's what we do." Then he opens the door and strides out into the yard.

"Damn right," Lyme says, and claps Claudius on the shoulder. "Okay. Home, sparring, food. How's that sound?"

Claudius swallows, both to clear his throat and to stop himself from saying any one of the torrent of embarrassing things pressing on his mind - that it sounds like heaven, like a storybook, like every promise he ever made himself while lying hunched on his bed in Residential, every fading dream he clung to for those few glorious seconds before the wake-up anthem drove it from his mind.

"Sounds good," Claudius says instead, and Lyme looks at him and smiles and yeah, she knows. She hip-checks him into the door on the way out, Claudius punches her in the arm, and Lyme drags him the entire way back to his house in a headlock.

"I love you," he tells her, shoving at her forearm and staring at her shoes because he can't twist around to see anything else.

"Yeah, I know," Lyme says, and instead of letting go she yanks him tighter, tugging her elbow into her ribs. Claudius grins at the grass because he knows, too.


	8. Chapter 7: Interlude: Don't Worry

**Chapter 7: Interlude: Boy don't you worry, you'll find yourself**

"Do mentors have Victor baby books?" Claudius asks one afternoon in November. He takes a deep breath of the crisp autumn air, inhales the wet, smoky scent of the last of the fallen leaves. It snowed last night, and a light scattering of snow dusts the ground. Claudius stubs the toe of his boot against a clump of frozen dirt and nearly trips, which for some reason he finds hilarious.

Lyme gives him a look, her eyebrows unbalanced. "A what now? Do I even want to know what those are? I don't know anything about weird customs with babies. It's not like they can read."

Claudius has since learned that Lyme's utter bafflement toward anything under ten is legendary in the Village. The others joke that if it's not a teenaged boy with emotional attachment issues, she'll start screaming and asking if it's housetrained. Once after her victory they tried taking her on a tour of an orphanage and she nearly ran out screaming. He also overheard a couple of the others saying that Claudius is pretty much the perfect recipe to bring out Lyme's 'gimme!' reflex so it's no surprise she fought for him, and the fact that they said it where they didn't know he was listening put a smile on his face for days.

"You know, Victor's Firsts." Claudius cups his hands in front of his mouth and blows into the gap between his thumbs, and Lyme rolls her eyes, pulls off her gloves and gives them to him. He doesn't argue, just slides them over his hands and enjoys how much bigger they are on him. "Victor's first time sleeping through the night. Victor's first time saying the word 'Arena' out loud without panicking, that kind of thing. Do you have mentor parties where you go through them and brag how quick this one stopped having nightmares and this one quit trying to carve up his wrists?"

"Kid, you are weird," Lyme says, clapping him between the shoulder blades. "We don't talk about our kids with each other, that shit's private. Besides, every one of us is convinced that ours is the best, so if we did it would turn into a bloodbath."

Claudius ducks his head to avoid a low-hanging tree branch, but it brushes against his hair anyway, dropping snow down the back of his neck. "Yeah? What about you?" It's been months and he should probably be over his pathological need for attention and reassurance, but oh well, he's a Victor and he can do what he wants, even if that's act like a kid fresh out of Transition who keeps asking if the trainer saw him make that bullseye.

Lyme shoots him a grin, warm and affectionate. "Yeah, see, I _know_ mine is best." She ruffles his hair, combing the last of the wet slush from it, and she picks out half a pine cone and snorts before tossing it away. Claudius should probably get a haircut. He should probably care.

The one good thing about Claudius not being a typical Two bruiser is that his post-Games physical recovery is easier, Lyme tells him. The big ones, like Brutus, spend the last few months before the Games bulking up as much as possible, with food and training and steroids, in order to present the highest weight possible at the Remaking weigh-in. The bigger they are, the better the odds, and the more of a cushion they have in the Arena when the food tapers off and exposure starts to take its toll. If they win, most male Victors drop a scary amount of weight, thanks to the lack of training and food and their medication, making it all the more difficult when they try to get back into training.

Claudius, being smaller from the start, didn't get the artificial boosting that the others did, which meant that while he lost weight from hunger in the Arena, he gained it back almost as soon as he started eating regularly again. It means he can start going to the gym again quicker, building up his endurance, and the walks with Lyme started as an easy way to get him moving that soon shifted into habit. As Claudius regained his stamina the walks went longer, higher up the mountain, and now they hike for almost two hours every day. Claudius enjoys the privacy, the combination of getting out of the house and using his muscles with the quiet intimacy of being alone with Lyme. Each day they take a different trail; by now they've covered half the mountain. It helps Claudius carve out a niche for himself here in the Village, and with every path he memorizes, he feels more and more like he actually belongs here.

"Tell me what you're thinking," Lyme says, and that's a mentor thing, a way for them to bond and for the Victors never to forget that their mentor is there for them no matter what's in their heads.

"I'm happy," Claudius says, and Lyme hums. "And part of me thinks I shouldn't be, that anyone who's killed as many people as I have should never get to be happy again, but I don't care. I might as well enjoy it before I get my own kids to mentor and then I'm never happy again."

Lyme frowns at him, her gaze sharp, but she doesn't tell him he's wrong or stupid or mistaken. "It's not all bad," she says instead. "We get our miracles, and that's enough."

Claudius looks at his hands, currently drowning in Lyme's too-big gloves, and the feeling of gratitude settles in his chest with a sharp tug, like a fishhook in his heart. "Not everybody gets them, though." He knows the stats, the same as anyone who went all the way through training; around sixteen, after the Field Exam, talk of ideal mentors turns serious. "Lots of mentors never have anyone come out." He doesn't name them, even though he could; that would be disrespectful, and it's not their fault.

"I know." Lyme's first Victor, the one she mentored after only two years out herself, has been in six times and has never managed to see anyone walk out the other side. She's far from the only one. "The odds are never in anyone's favour, D, not even ours. But at least we have each other, and that's something some of the others don't."

Claudius has seen the other mentors on television during the Reaping, and he's always felt nothing but the sour taste of disgust toward them. He can't imagine the pain of watching his kids die every year, two by two, without the support of other Victors and mentors, without the Centre giving the kids what edge it can. He also can't imagine drinking himself into a stupor just so he won't have to think about it, either; some of the outlying mentors' disregard toward their tributes is appalling.

The meat-mentors think the Careers are sick, twisted barbarians; the Careers tend to think the same in reverse.

"You've got a ways to go before you think about mentoring, kiddo," Lyme says, and she wraps her arm around his neck, the scratchy wool of her sleeve rough against his skin. "I'm not letting go of you for a long time." She lets go only to shove him into a pile of leaves, and as Claudius goes down he catches her arm and pulls him down with her. It still feels strange to wrestle like an overgrown puppy with the woman tasked with making sure twenty-three other kids wound up dead to bring him here, but then Lyme pins him again, just long enough that he feels secure and protected and safe before pulling him up again and he really doesn't care.

* * *

"You need to start thinking about your Talents, D," Lyme says a few days later, over a supper of pasta that's a little crunchier than it should be but Claudius is still learning. He's just pleased it's edible; it's been months now and the other Victors won't be bringing him food forever.

Claudius stops with his fork halfway to his mouth. "Talents? As in, plural?" Lyme nods, and he tilts his head. "So the Talents thing is actually real? I just thought it was the usual Capitol bullshit."

"I'm pretty sure it is in most places," Lyme says. "In the outer districts, definitely, they just make up whatever thing will make the reporters the happiest. In One it's usually something like pole dancing." Her face twists, and Claudius knows why; it's no secret what happens to the One victors. There's a reason why they only have a handful of female mentors, too, and it's not because One girls never win. "But here we take it seriously. You spend your whole life training to destroy things, it's good to find something to do that's not part of that."

"Oh," Claudius says, and they don't talk about that in training but it makes sense; they don't talk about anything after the Arena because for most of the kids who Graduate there is no after, it's a one-way trip where eighteen is the end of the line, and only one every few years will get the special ticket home. "I guess that makes sense. But why more than one?"

Lyme sets down her fork and drums her finger against the table. "Well, that's because the Capitol will take whatever you tell them and turn it into a media circus," she says, and Claudius hears the distaste in her voice even as her words are professional. "So what we do is we give them a fake one, something they can milk on television during the Tour, and then we keep the real one for ourselves."

It's a strange duality, being a Career and then a Victor in Two; they give their every breath, every heartbeat, to the Capitol, from first to last, whether that last comes choking on their own blood in the grass or fifty years later in bed. The other districts think Two does it out of love and loyalty and that they're too blind and stupid to see the rotting carcass, but that just shows they're idiots. Claudius can dance to the Capitol's waltz without missing a step and still think about hanging President Snow from the ceiling by his intestines because he is a complex human being, not a robot. And if they think that's impressive, they should see him juggle.

"You don't want to give them anything you don't mind them taking from you and twisting into something ridiculous," Lyme says, matter of fact. "If you tell them you want to paint, they'll insist on you doing a show in the Capitol, that sort of thing, so it's best to pick something you won't hate while you do it on television for a couple of months, but something you won't mind being ruined for you. Bonus, this means you can pick something for your image that works, and you'll be able to change the real one if it ends up not working for you."

Claudius runs a hand through his hair. "Suggestions?"

"We need to keep softening the killer image without making it totally ridiculous and over the top," Lyme says. "You're not Brutus; part of his thing is that he's always kept one foot inside the Arena, so his public Talent was weapons."

"What about you? The public one, I mean." Claudius doesn't ask her about the real one; Lyme hasn't said anything about it either way, but that feels personal, not the sort of thing he should ask unless she volunteers the information herself.

Lyme's gaze goes distant. "I didn't have Brutus' Games-crazy. I didn't want that to be part of my persona, and that was tough because, well." She gestures to herself, and Lyme isn't anywhere as huge as Brutus but she's definitely the most muscled female Victor in all of Panem's history. She won her Games by cunning more than brutality, but that doesn't mean much to a country that would take one look at Claudius' face and assume he likes carving babies up like turkey. "Nero agreed, he thought that would be bad for me, too, and we needed something to soften it."

Claudius tries to imagine what it was, but after a minute he gives up. "Yeah, I've got nothing."

Lyme snorts. "Photography."

"Really?"

"Yep. There was an exhibit and everything, it's probably still around somewhere. Lots of nature stuff, some portraits, I don't even remember. Haven't done it in years." Lyme grins. "Brutus let me do a series on him at the gym working out because I was desperate, but then the Capitol went and called it something incredibly douchey like the Art of Human Perfection or something. Fuelled rumours that we were an item for months, not sure he ever forgave me for it."

Claudius coughs. "We may or may not have taken bets on that."

Lyme's face pinches around the nose, and her fingers twitch like she's trying to clean something sticky off her fingernails. "Kids. Of course you did. Don't tell me which way you voted, I don't want to know." She quirks an eyebrow at him. "The answer is no, by the way, just because you do actually have to look at him and I'd rather you not start laughing."

Claudius grins in spite of himself, and Lyme just snorts with her patented mix of indulgent and also not taking any of his shit. "Man, now I owe Tobias a snake bite, asshole thought he was so smart. I said you guys were both too tough, you'd just spend the whole time arguing -"

"_We were talking about Talents_," Lyme talks over him forcefully, leaning over to cuff him on the back of the head, and Claudius laughs, giddy.

"It would be too on the nose if I picked photography too," Claudius muses. "I think they'd start thinking I was trying too hard."

"Probably, or I would have suggested it." Lyme taps the edge of his plate with her finger, and Claudius immediately goes back to eating. A well-trained monster he is, he thinks, and snickers inwardly. "Give a thought to your real one, D, I'll keep an eye out for ideas about the public one."

Later that night they're watching something on TV when a Capitol broadcast interrupts to talk about the upcoming Victory Tour. Lyme reaches over and squeezes Claudius' knee, her hand solid and warm and grounding, but Claudius still flinches when the anthem blares through the speakers. Every time the music swells he thinks of the Arena, the net glittering in the darkness as the faces of the fallen flashed overhead, and to keep himself from sinking back in, Claudius concentrates on the music, trying to pick out the instruments like he did during his recap on stage with Caesar.

Claudius knows nothing about music, other than what he's gleaned here and there over the years, but he's picked up some. He hears the blare of brass, the slide of strings in the melody with lower strings sawing out the ominous bottom notes, all over crashing drums, and his brain itches to understand it, to take it apart and analyze it, to know what it is about the drum beats that makes his heart rate match it, why the upward swoop of the music and vocals at once terrifies and energizes him, sets his blood to singing and his pulse jump in his throat.

"Music," Claudius says, and Lyme looks at him. "I want - I want to learn music. If that's not stupid." The more he thinks about it, the better he likes the idea; anyone starting out with music will sound stupid and ugly, all discords and clashes, but he can practice and every time he does he will get better. There's no backslide with music as long as he keeps at it, and even then he's heard that playing an instrument is like swinging a sword; even if you get out of condition, the muscles remember, and it's impossible to forget completely.

It's the one thing he could do that might result in something beautiful. Claudius has done nothing but destroy since he was old enough to remember, since he first learned what matches were and what they could do to things his mother loved, long before the first time he felt the crunch of bones shattering beneath his fist. This, this could be different. The anthem fades as the broadcast ends, leaving him feeling oddly bereft.

"I can have a piano here tomorrow afternoon if you want to start on that," Lyme says. "Other things too, if you want, though I'll have to ask around because what the hell do I know about music."

Claudius wets his lips. "Maybe - put that where the weapons room was going to be? It could be a music room instead." He swallows and wants to look at her, see her reaction, but he can't bring himself to do it. "Is that totally stupid?"

"D, you could take up plate-twirling and if that's what you wanted to do, it wouldn't be stupid," Lyme says, which isn't really the same thing, but he gets what she means, and she shifts to drop her arm around his shoulders, tugging him against her. "But actually, no, I think music would work really well for you. But definitely keep that one private."

He stares at his hands, made clean and smooth by the Remaking Centre and missing the calluses, the training scars, and imagines making music with them. He shivers, and the part of him still aching for the Arena, for the sense of purpose that drove his every thought from age six to age eighteen and now stumbles around, lost and searching, finally goes quiet.

"You're a smart kid," Lyme tells him. "Not everybody figures theirs out so fast. I'll give you something to feed the Capitol and you'll be set."

"It's going to drive you crazy," Claudius says, smiling a little. "Me playing the same thing over and over again, trying to stop sounding horrible."

"I'll listen to it all day if it makes you happy," Lyme says, squeezing the back of his neck. "And if you really suck at first, I'll buy earplugs."

Claudius laughs aloud and leans his head against her shoulder.

"What about movies?" Claudius asks the next morning, over breakfast. He's gotten pretty good at making omelettes, which is a small kind of accomplishment in its own way. It feels like a metaphor. "It would be like an homage to yours, but updated for the next generation."

Lyme raises an eyebrow. "Watch who you're talking with that 'previous generation' crap, kiddo, I'm not _that_ much older than you. What sort of movies were you thinking?"

"Stupid artsy shit," Claudius says immediately, and Lyme snorts a laugh. "I don't know. I just thought about it because I remember thinking about how they cut the Games."

"Don't make a documentary or anything, if that's what you want to do," Lyme warns him. "Nothing even remotely political, you hear me? In fact, nothing about the Village, period. You shouldn't be in front of the camera at all."

"Well, no." Claudius thinks back to the President's threats about not remembering Claudius' name come the Tour. "Nature stuff, I don't know, but nothing actually personal, and definitely nothing about the Victors. But it would let them play the stupid film and everyone could ooh and ahh while thinking I'm a talentless hack, and then it will be forgotten and no one will ever bring it up again because they'll have someone new."

Lyme nods. "No, that's good. Just run anything you shoot by me to make sure first, I have more experience and a better radar for the kind of thing they'd consider subversive than you do. We have about a month until all the pre-Tour preparations start, so that should give you time to come up with a few things they can shop around in the meantime."

Claudius thinks of the Capitol propos, the way every word, every shot is cut and chosen and stitched together in a way to tell the story the President wants everyone to hear. What happens next is dangerous, so dangerous that Claudius immediately wipes the thought from his mind and pretends it never even formed in his brain: the normal Reaping propo, but with the President's promises of riches overlaying not the usual sweeping shots of various muscled teenagers in poses of glory, but the tracking shots of the corpses following the bloodbath. The idea that if the Capitol can combine video footage, music, and voiceovers to create their messages, so might someone else.

The thought and his immediate rejection of it leaves Claudius chilled and shaking, and Lyme's eyes widen. "Hey. You okay?"

"I need to go spar," Claudius says, dropping his fork with a clatter. "Right now, I - my head's all out of whack, I need you to knock it back into place. It's the Tour, going back to the Capitol, I dunno."

"Well, you're not going back yet," Lyme says, and she stands up and tugs him to his feet. "Lots of time before then to make sure you're ready, and I'm not just talking about the haircut you're finally going to get whether you like it or not. Let's go, you."

"Thanks," Claudius says, and his nerves are a jangle and the ground feels uneven beneath his feet.

Lyme glances at him, and before Claudius can react she shoves him up against the wall and pins him. "It's gonna be fine," she tells him, and Claudius sags under her grip. "We're gonna spar, when you're ready we're gonna talk about it, and whatever it is, it's gonna be fine. Okay?"

"Yes ma'am," Claudius says, and he lets go of the traitorous thoughts and lets them slip away. He grips her wrist in both hands.

"Good," she says firmly, and that's that.

* * *

Lyme wasn't kidding about the rush order; the piano arrives in the afternoon, after Claudius has sparred with Lyme and taken a nap and gone for a walk, and he's trying again to read on his own while Lyme is out doing work things. She can leave him alone for an hour or two now without him getting nervous or twitchy, and Claudius is actually reading and not wondering what she's doing when the doorbell rings.

"Special delivery," says Brutus, deadpan, when Claudius opens the door, and Claudius has to rearrange his brain at the sight of Brutus and Nero holding a gigantic wheeled crate between them. He supposes they don't generally let deliverymen into the Village, but he thinks about the gate staff calling in and asking for the biggest Victors in the Village to come take the piano to his house, and his brain shorts out a little.

"Uh," Claudius says, eyes wide, and he scrambles back to let them in. Brutus' muscles strain against his sleeves as he hauls the front half of the box over the front step and into his living room. "Just - that room there, or you can just leave it here and I'll get it."

"What, with your chicken arms?" Brutus snorts. "Sit your ass down."

Claudius does, because even if Brutus isn't your mentor, when he tells you to sit your ass down, you sit your ass _down_. "They're not chicken arms," is as much as Claudius permits himself to say, under his breath and only a little sulky, and Brutus just tosses back a "yeah, yeah" as he and Nero wheel the piano through to the music room. Anything would look scrawny next to Brutus and his tree-trunk arms, anyway, it's not like it's Claudius' fault.

He flips through his book but can't concentrate on it; he hasn't seen Nero since his homecoming, not on purpose, but they haven't gone out of their way to get acquainted. Claudius and Lyme have been over to Brutus' a couple of times, where Lyme and Brutus - work buddies but not really best of friends, as far as Claudius can tell - cracked open some beers and mostly didn't talk much while Claudius drank juice and tried not to laugh at how much his childhood self must be dancing.

Nero, though. Claudius gets twitchy if he thinks too hard about Lyme and Nero's mentor relationship and where it is - or isn't - now, and Nero must be grieving for the tribute that Lyme and Claudius killed just as thoroughly as if they'd both stuck the knife in themselves. More than anything Claudius wants to know he didn't ruin things between the two of them. He can't apologize for Nikita's death really, since if it was reversed she'd be sitting here while Claudius lay in a grave somewhere, but he wishes that Lyme didn't have to turn against her own mentor to get him out.

For all Claudius knows, this is just part of the cycle, but he hopes not. Right now, faced with the choice of stabbing Lyme between the ribs for the chance to get a tribute out alive or not giving one hundred fifty percent in the hopes that's enough, Claudius knows which one he'd choose, and he knows no one would blame him, at least right now. There's a reason why Two doesn't allow fresh Victors to take tributes. He wonders if Lyme and Nero have been set against each other before or if this was the first time.

After a few bangs and clunks and discords, followed by a burst of muttered cursing, Brutus and Nero come back out. "Should be all set up," Brutus says, dusting off his hands on his slacks. "Guy at the gate said it's all tuned, though hell if I know. Some music books in there, too."

"Thanks," Claudius says. He glances at Nero, who nods at him. It's neither standoffish nor encouraging, and Claudius expects that's as good as he's going to get right now and wouldn't know what to say otherwise anyhow. He waits until they leave before heading into the music room.

Claudius knows about as much about pianos as Brutus does, so he's relieved to see that it looks like it's in one piece, anyway. Lyme chose one for him in a rich, reddish wood that matches the rest of the house, but other than that Claudius has no clue what does or doesn't make a good instrument. He runs his fingers over the cool, smooth keys, and he presses down on one, slowly, but nothing happens. He frowns and does it again, and after a few tries he figures out that it won't work if he's too tentative; if he wants to make any sound at all he'll have to be firm. It seems like a good metaphor for life, somehow, and Claudius smiles to himself as he picks up the books resting on the low bench and takes them back to the sofa.

The first one he picks up is full of nothing but actual music, and Claudius can't read that so he sets it aside. The other is theory and history, and that could be interesting but not what he wants either, so he puts that on the table as well. The last one, printed with a thick, glossy cover and large, friendly typeface, is a beginner's book explaining how the notes work, what the letters mean and how the stuff on paper corresponds to the actual physical keys. That, at least, is helpful, and Claudius reads through it, his finger moving under each word one by one, until he thinks he understands the theory. The bit about connecting the notes to letters isn't going to help him at all, and so Claudius just memorizes the position of the little black marks on the score with the drawing of a keyboard instead.

He's at the piano, picking out keys one finger at a time when the door opens. "Hey," Lyme calls out, and Claudius hits a random selection of keys to let her know where he is, scrunching his face between a grin and a grimace when it comes out clashing. "Oh, good, it's here. How's it coming?"

In answer, Claudius plays five notes - the opening of the Panem Anthem, he looked at the scratch marks and he pushed on these keys and _music came out_, music he recognizes - and when Lyme pokes her head in the door, she's smiling. "Sounds good," she says. "You want to get some food? We could go out if you're feeling up to it."

Claudius sort of really never wants to leave the Village again, but he knows he has to get used to it or he'll fall apart on the Tour. After that he won't have to until it's time to mentor, and he likes the sound of that. "Sure," he says, and he plays those five notes again. It's all he knows how to do so far, but even that is exhilarating.

They both wear long sleeves and bulky sweaters to hide the tattoos and Victor physiques, and Claudius wears a hat pulled down over his forehead. There's not much Lyme can do about her face - aside from her size it's the most memorable thing about her, the fierceness, the angle of her jaw and sharp hook of her nose - and she'd just look ridiculous if she tried to hide it, but she knows which parts of town are good for getting recognized and which aren't. She finds them a restaurant and they get a seat at the back, with the only recognition being a few looks from people who will go home and tell their friends they saw someone who looked a lot like a Victor, isn't that funny.

It's not that many people but it's still more than Claudius would like after months alone, and his shoulders keep creeping up toward his ears. Lyme sits next to him in the booth instead of across, and every so often she puts her hand on his shoulder and presses down as a reminder.

They don't talk much until dessert arrives, when Lyme nudges Claudius with her elbow. "You okay, kiddo?"

Claudius sticks his spoon in his ice cream and stirs, watching the sauce disappear in swirls until the whole thing is a brown, goopy mess. He's still getting used to the idea of being allowed to eat ice cream in the first place, and maybe it's not very adult of him to want it but he likes the novelty even if it's too sweet for him to eat very much. "Are you and Nero gonna be okay?"

Lyme lets out a quiet sigh. "It's more complicated than that. It's not like we were best friends, and then you came along and now we're sending each other our belongings back. Whenever a Two wins, it's always tough for the mentor who loses one regardless, but we can't wish things to be the other way around. That's suicide. I'm giving Nero time, just like I normally would."

"But you used what you knew about him against you," Claudius says, staring down at his bowl. "You broke the code."

"Kid, he would've done the same if he'd thought of it first, it's just his luck he didn't. That's what we do." Lyme taps her finger against the tabletop. "It's not something you have to worry about. Me and Nero, we'll be fine. He was my mentor and that doesn't go away just because."

Claudius presses his lips tight together. "I don't want to have to go against you someday."

"It's rare," Lyme says. "It just happened that we were both the right fits for the tributes, but they try not to do it. Chances are it's not going to happen."

Unfortunately for Claudius and his sense of well-being, 'chances are' means a little bit less than it used to having gone through the Arena. Lyme knows it, and she reaches over and closes her hand over the back of his neck, giving him a firm shake. "I'm forbidding you to worry about this, all right?" she says. "This is my thing, and it will be fine, it just needs a bit more time. It isn't your fault, and if you start to worry yourself sick over it and we have to spend all day sparring out then okay, but I'd rather you didn't."

"Yes ma'am," Claudius says finally.

"That a real 'yes ma'am' or one you're just saying?"

Claudius grins at her, and the knot between his shoulders loosens. "I ain't that polite."

She grins back. "Good boy."

* * *

Icy winter rain patters against the window early the next morning, the sky grey and clouded and unforgiving. It's the kind of rain that's halfway to ice, and Claudius knows that better than anyone; the kind that soaked through his coat and ran down his neck and froze him to his bones, that sat in his lungs until he coughed up gunk. The kind that they included in the Arena during his Field Exam just to see if he could fight through it because they knew his history, because in training he stayed inside when the rain came down as sleet unless they made him. The kind where not even the tarps he'd find in the Cornucopia packs could protect him because it made the air damp and cold and clammy.

The kind that Claudius never, ever has to go outside in again unless he wants to. _Ever_.

Instead, he wraps himself in his quilts and sits up against the pillows, leaning his forehead against the cool glass and staring outside, safe in his attic with the low ceiling and the soft, orange lighting, and it's his, all his. Claudius rubs his fingers over his wrist and lets out a long breath.

He stays there until Lyme knocks on his door. "Hey," she calls. "You okay in there?"

Claudius sits up straight and runs his fingers through his hair. "Yeah, I'm okay, come on in."

She does, and even though she's his mentor and she's twined into every aspect of his life, Lyme never enters his room without asking first. She's got her fingers hooked deep into his soul but his room in the attic is his private place, and she told him it's important for him to know he has that. "Good to hear," Lyme says, and she brings him a tray with a steaming bowl of oatmeal and an apple sliced into chunks. "It's after ten, just wanted to make sure."

Claudius blinks. "Really?"

"Yeah." Lyme sets the tray down on the blankets and sits at the end of the bed, one leg curled under her. "Congrats on sleeping through the night, kiddo. I'll put it in the baby book."

He picks up the oversized bowl and holds with both hands, balancing it on his knees with the near edge against his chest. Claudius always liked oatmeal back in the Centre; it's warm and comforting and solid, and the first time Lyme made it for him with peanut butter and late-summer raspberry jelly stirred in, Claudius had to fight the rock in his throat to eat it. It still twists his head a little, that Lyme learned to kill as a teenager and clawed her way out of an Arena and learned how to pull other kids out but somewhere in there apparently took a course in relaxing foods for crazy Victors. He wonders what Nero used to make her.

Lyme leans forward, picks up one of the apple chunks and turns it over in her fingers. "So here's the plan, D. Rest of November we stay here, relax, get lots of sleep, and you can take videos of the mountains or the lower town or whatever you want so we can do something with it later, but once December hits we're going to have to go back to the Capitol."

Claudius tightens his fingers on the edge of the bowl, but he's in a warm bed with warm blankets and warm oatmeal and Lyme only a few feet away and the Capitol can't hurt him, not here. "Why so early?"

"It looks good on you to be eager," Lyme says, and she doesn't roll her eyes but he hears it in her voice anyway. "And because the other districts have to let a prep team into their Village to get the Victor ready, getting preliminary footage and interviews and all the makeover stuff, but we don't do that here. This is ours and they don't get to come in, so we go to them instead. They'll do everything at your apartment."

Claudius frowns. "I have an apartment?"

"Yep." Lyme keeps a straight face. "It's very tasteful."

Claudius snickers and nearly chokes on his oatmeal. "I'll take your word for it," he says, and pounds his chest with his fist. "But you're coming with me."

"Oh yeah." Lyme gives him a tight smile. "Welcome to yet another manifestation of District Two privilege. You're not going anywhere without me. I'll be on stage with you, at every interview, and if I don't like a question they don't get to ask it. They almost hate it when a Two wins just because we're a pain in the neck, but it comes with the territory. I'll pre-approve everything and write your lines for you, all you have to do is play along." She points a finger at him. "And this isn't because you're a baby, either, you think Brutus said his own shit at his Tour? No. This is how it works for everyone."

It's just too bad Claudius can't do the whole Tour wrapped in quilts with his hair brushing his neck, but it's better than he thought. They watched the relevant parts of the Tour every year in the Centre, analyzing the angle every tribute played - or not - and the non-Career Victors always looked somewhere between shell-shocked and close to vomiting. He lets his mind slide right over Gloss and Cashmere from a couple years ago because that's different and not happening to him even if he were pretty enough and he's not going to think about it.

"I just wanted to let you know now so you have an idea of what's going to happen," Lyme says, and she pats his foot through the blankets. "And remember, like I said, it's still a month away. I just didn't want to say oh, hey, by the way we're going back tomorrow."

Claudius just keeps eating his oatmeal, because sometimes that's the only thing a man can do. "I don't feel like going out in the rain," he says. "Can we spar first and then I'll practice the piano for a while?"

"Sure thing, kiddo." Lyme winks at him. "I left you a camera downstairs so you can start recording your new passions too."

Before sparring, Claudius takes the camera back upstairs and sets it on the windowsill, where he proceeds to leave it running to record an hour of nothing but the rain striking the panes. It's too grey and misty outside to make anything out of the yard, no worries about privacy breaches here, and Claudius snorts at the thought of forcing people to watch this. "I think I'll call it something to do with tranquility," he says to Lyme on the way downstairs. If sounds from their match filter up into the video he decides that will be an acceptable level of surrealism, or something.

After that, Lyme tousles Claudius' hair and says she's brought some work with her to do on the couch while he practices. "If you're sure," Claudius says, dubious. "It's not going to sound very pretty." Lyme just tells him she doesn't know anything about music anyway, so it's not like she can tell the difference, and Claudius appreciates it even if he knows better.

It's been years since Claudius was bad at something - or, if not bad, then new enough, beginner enough, to be completely incompetent. Even as a young kid in the Centre, the big kids had snuck him weapons to play with so that by the time he was officially old enough to use them, Claudius had passing proficiency. The first time he threw knives at a target in front of the trainers, at the age of ten, he hadn't thought to disguise himself and hit the target eight times out of eleven. The trainers had told him if he was going to cheat he'd better improve his lying skills, which he soon learned to do.

There's no way to fake it with the piano, either; no way to cheat, to take a cheap shot or alter his stance when he's supposed to toss a spear without moving his feet. No way for him to improve other than to keep working, and it's both a novelty and an incredible draw for Claudius. It's even better than cooking, because after he fumbles his way through a children's song he never learned, there's no burnt eggs that he has to scrape off the bottom of the pan, no ruined sauces, no exploded potatoes all over the inside of the oven because who would even think of poking them before sticking them in there, no one, that's who.

No repercussions for failure, other than his own personal irritation, no way to improve other than practice, and no danger of getting worse. Claudius sits at the piano, eyes narrowed at the music he is slowly starting to piece together into the proper language - they don't dance around the page, he notices, the notes stay where they're supposed to and always correspond to the right keys and he thinks, maybe, he's found something that could be just as much a part of him as the pressure of a blade against skin. It turns out that the repetition and muscle memory of playing scales is just as tasking as practicing stabbing the point of a knife between each finger. Claudius learns to hear when he hits the wrong note and adjust himself, and just like moving the blade faster and faster without nicking his skin, he improves at running his fingers over the keys.

"Food and meds time," Lyme says from the door, and Claudius looks up, surprised. "It's after four. You've been going a long time. Sounding good, as far as I can tell."

"Well, I can swing the sword without hitting myself in the face, if that's what you mean," Claudius says, but at the same time he still feels a glow of pride in his chest, silly as it might be. His wrists ache and his back twinges from sitting in a hunched position for so long; next time he'll adjust the bench a little lower or something. Lyme comes in to stand behind him, and Claudius leans back with his head against her side.

Four months ago, Claudius was probably burying his sword in another boy's abdomen. Now he's celebrating making it through a night without waking up screaming, and learning to play a musical instrument like a five-year-old. Life is weird. "Thanks for getting me out," he says.

"Kid, you got yourself out," Lyme tells him, and claps his shoulder. "But I do what I can. Up, it's time for sandwiches."


	9. Chapter 8: Victory Tour, Part 1

**Chapter 8: Victory Tour, Part 1: Undo this guilt, bathing in filth**

_District Twelve_

The coal dust sticks thick and heavy in his throat. It hangs in the air, stinging his nose and itching the roof of his mouth - or maybe that's the despair, which rises from the crowd in front of him like the heat shimmers on the pavement while waiting for the hovercraft to take him to the Arena. Claudius swallows around the dust and the dryness and the dead, dead eyes of the people watching him and wishes he could ask for water, but a Victor can't stand on the stage and complain about thirst in front of the people whose kin have died in order for him to be there.

The differences between Twelve and Two are stark, and it isn't just the sunken, hollow cheekbones of the dark-haired crowd. Even the cold is different here. In Two it's crisp and clear; it stings against his skin and burns the inside of his nose with its purity, like filling his chest with ice. There's a clarity to the cold in Two, and Claudius would know because he's spent months in it. Here in Twelve, the winter air is wet and heavy and sits in his lungs like liquid, and in the otherwise silent square he hears the hacking, mucus-filled coughs that the people with their dead, dead eyes don't even bother to mask. It's no wonder the mortality rate in Twelve is so high; once it gets into your lungs there's nothing to do but cough and cough until you die.

Looking out at the weathered but young faces in the crowd, it seems most people pick that option fairly early.

Twelve is a district where - rumour has it - the black market operates in broad daylight because no one cares enough to shut it down, authority included. Everyone in Twelve, from its citizens to the Peacekeepers sent there as punishment for employment offences, walks with shoulders bowed under the crushing weight of collective indifference. Most of the Peacekeepers don't even bother carrying their whips because it wouldn't make a difference.

In District Twelve, death is like the neighbour who takes the house next door and keeps dropping by to borrow this spoon or that hammer, and there's no point in protesting because he'll just be back tomorrow. Claudius stands on the stage and feels it press against his chest as surely as the cold seeps through his clothes.

Claudius didn't kill either of the Twelves. The boy didn't last the bloodbath, and the girl died in the middle when the acid rain stripped her to her bones. He looks out at the crowd, the staring mass of blank, apathetic faces, and knows it doesn't matter.

* * *

_District Eleven_

Claudius did, apparently, kill one of the Elevens - the girl, Starla - in the first frenzied minute on his tear to the Cornucopia. He remembers his sword connecting with bone, just not whose, but Lyme has a list, every death and who or what caused it. She tells him as the train rolls in through the vast, seemingly endless fields and orchards when they practice his lines. The kids in the Centre will have the list by now too; in order to make it into Residential, each candidate has to be able to name any death from the previous Games on command, and from February they'll be responsible for the ones from Claudius' year as well. It's a surreal thought.

In Eleven, the anger hums in the air like the buzz from their thirty-five-foot electrified district boundary fence; it simmers in the blood of the assembled crowd, and all it would take, Claudius thinks, is one thing - one false move, one wrong word - to set off an explosion. Where Twelve was a district that would shrug and roll over as its citizens are slaughtered, Eleven is waiting - agonizing - desperate and raw and aching for anyone to give them the chance to lash out.

Even Claudius, drugged to the gills with mood stabilizers until the edges of his vision are a pleasant haze and his thoughts soft like someone wrapped a towel around his brain, can see that. The shoulders of the people in Eleven are tight and ready, unbroken and unbowed. In Eleven the Peacekeepers carry their whips like badges, their handles worn from constant use, and their eyes are narrowed and alert, their bodies tense. Their escort speaks in a high-pitched, tremulous voice that can't be complete affectation, and stays close to the Peacekeepers on stage.

Lyme is tense behind him, her hand firm on his shoulder, fingers digging in just enough to keep him alert without flipping him over into confused, over-medicated alarm. He makes it through his lines without stumbling, and the eyes that watch him pierce him through with hatred, but he doesn't give them what they want, the chance to throw off the yokes for a few precious seconds before the sticks come crashing down.

He walks off the stage to crackling, brittle silence - no applause, and he notices that no one tries to force them to - and lets Lyme lead him away.

The dinner with the previous Victors and town officials is a quiet, awkward affair. The only real conversation is between the two Capitol escorts, and they chatter on about food and the weather and various fashion trends while everyone else eats their meal and looks at their plates. Lyme radiates tense readiness the entire time, and Claudius can't look at the other mentors.

After dinner they head immediately for the train, and Claudius notes that Lyme doesn't breathe until the doors hiss shut and the engine pulls away from the station. Claudius curls up on the seat with his head in her lap and closes his eyes.

That night, Claudius wakes up screaming, clawing at the air and tearing at the sheets, pressing himself flat against the wall to get away from the dark, condemning eyes of a girl with a blurred, blank face, until Lyme bursts in and holds him down. "I don't remember," Claudius says into her shoulder. "I killed her and I don't remember." It never bothered him before.

"She'd still be dead if you did," Lyme says, stroking his hair, and Claudius gasps in a shuddering breath and uncurls his fists, blood slick against his nails.

_She'd still be dead if you did_. It helps. He crunches the pills she gives him - the bitter taste on his tongue makes him gag, and he's glad for that small measure of penance - and sleeps.

* * *

_District Ten_

The people in Ten are wary. There's hate there, disgust and anger, too, but it's faded like the faint scent of manure that hangs in the air in the winter chill, and they look through Claudius rather than at him. Their eyes follow the strings that make him dance.

Thanks to his nightmares, he's pumped so full of medication that his jaunt in Eleven feels like Arena-sharpness in comparison. Claudius can barely stand without swaying - again Lyme's hand grounds him, her nails in his shoulder like spikes through his body, pinning him to the stage and keeping him upright - and he imagines the strings, cords tied to his wrists, his feet, his neck, going up, up, up until they disappear into the clouds between a giant, invisible set of hands. They see it, too, the people of Ten, and they watch him, look to his masters.

Claudius is with it enough to know that's dangerous, that something's wrong, that they shouldn't be watching the strings but the puppet, but he can't muster up enough brainpower to remember why. He's just glad they don't despise him. He makes his speech - memorized, even with the fog in his brain, because Claudius is a Career and that's what he does, his job, whether it's memorizing pretty sentences about duty and honour or carving up teenagers with a borrowed sword - and shakes hands with the previous Victors, and then they let him go.

"How's your head, D, you in the game?" Lyme asks him before dinner, as his prep team flutters about and fixes the gold thread woven into his hair for reasons he's not even going to try to understand. Claudius stands still and doesn't interfere.

"Yes ma'am," he says. Lyme gives him a small smile and squeezes his hand; the prep team coos and giggles.

This dinner feels better than the ones before, though again it could just be the drugs. No one sits slumped in a drunken stupor, rousing themselves only to cackle at inappropriate moments and spill wine down their shirts; no one stares at the table with their teeth gritted and eyes accusing. The Ten Victors are oddly pretty for outliers, and both have cultivated a grim, biting humour instead of turning to the bottle.

"I'll give you five if you can tell me what our district does," says the man. Claudius tries to recall his name but can't through the fuzz in his brain. Back in the Centre that would've meant ten pushups. "Ten seconds or less, no cheating, and 'farming' doesn't count."

Claudius knows the jokes about the interchangeability of Nine through Eleven - he's made them himself, in training - but now he doesn't even hesitate. "Livestock," he says and holds out his hand.

The other Victor grumbles and slaps a bill into it; Claudius would feel bad about that except that he has a stipend the same as all the others, so it's not like taking money from a citizen. "Lucky guess," he mutters.

"Nah." Claudius is feeling good, comparatively, and he didn't kill either of the Tens and their deaths were bloodbath quick and he has meds, wonderful glorious meds. "If you're not dressed as ranchers, you're dressed as actual animals. Easy to remember."

This year both tributes wore white, fluffy costumes and oversized hats with flopping ears that all but dwarfed them at the Tribute Parade. A flash of memory hits him: the girl's hat slipped low over forehead, and she pushed it back up as she blinked into the glare of the spotlights. This year they were sheep - _lambs for the slaughter_ he remembers thinking at the Parade - and now he wonders if that wasn't stupidity but a statement, the only thing that their stylists could do to try to garner sympathy and bring them home.

Claudius's head jerks up, and he glances around the table to see the same expression on the Ten Victors' faces. A pall settles over the conversation after that, and Claudius doesn't try to resurrect it. They rush the next course, skip dessert, and Claudius heads back to the train to escape.

"Wasn't your fault," Lyme tells him. Claudius doesn't know if he believes her, but he knows it makes no difference either way.

* * *

_District Nine_

District Nine is the raging brushfire to Eleven's slow-burning smoulder. While the people of Eleven seethed, silent and judging, in Nine it's a rolling boil, the crowd muttering and rumbling and never staying still. Peacekeepers ring the square, whips and batons at the ready, and the resentment thickens the air until Claudius can taste it like the stomach-turning burnt-toast stench from the ethanol factories and grain refineries in the city centre.

Nine Boy - Darren, Claudius reminds himself, his name was Darren, and this is important - has stalked Claudius' dreams almost every night. He's stood by the bed, emaciated and covered with sores, and when he opened his mouth to speak, vomit and blood and tracker jackers poured out and drowned Claudius until he woke up gasping and clutching at his throat. He died at Claudius' hands and Claudius made a toast over his body. He made this boy's grieving family out to be the villains, and six months of silent, stewing rage will not have diminished that memory.

There's no consideration for the vessel here, not like in Ten. This is personal, and as Claudius looks out into the crowd and sees nothing but hot, sparking hatred in their narrowed eyes and clenched teeth, he knows this is what the Capitol wanted. These people are not looking higher, to the ones pulling the levers; they have the villain who killed their boy right in front of them, standing in a Capitol-made suit that must cost half a year's wages and bought with the blood of their fallen children, and that's more than enough.

Claudius is glad for the stairs that run off the back of the stage and out without having to go through the throng; he's not sure they wouldn't rip him limb from limb if they got the chance, Peacekeepers or no. This time not even the full dose of tranquilizers before going onstage can dull the tripping of panic in his chest. Lyme stands ramrod straight beside him, solid and soothing, and he leans into her space. She flexes her hand so the side of her pinky finger presses against his forearm, and that's all they're allowed and Claudius is grateful, but he wishes he could be home and safe with the Village gates locked behind him.

The Victors in Nine are older - no one's won anything here since the forties - and harder and bolstered with hard liquor. The congratulatory speech rings just as hollow as all the others, but there's an edge to it. Claudius made it personal when he killed Darren and addressed his brother, and the mentors who had to sit and watch it happen have not forgotten.

"Our congratulations go to Claudius, the winner of the 67th Hunger Games, who for his victory deserves _so much._"

The male Victor ends his speech with a flourish and a sneer, the final words hanging in the air like oil on water just before someone throws a match. Lyme pulls in a hard breath through her nose, which chases away any doubts Claudius might have had about exactly what that means. He steps forward to the microphone and starts to give his speech when the audience ripples and a lone figure - a boy, maybe seventeen - pushes his way to the front, just above the stage.

"Hey!" he shouts, and the others back away to give him room. Claudius recognizes Darren's eyes and the stubborn set of his jaw in this boy's face, but even without that, it's perfectly clear. "Hey, you fucker, I got something for you!"

Claudius doesn't move, doesn't speak, but his fingers tighten around the microphone. He looks down, and just like a mouse in front of a snake like Claudius read about back when he still went to school, his gaze creeps to the boy's eyes. They're dark with rage, but something else, something Claudius recognizes because he feels it in his gut and sees it in the mirror every day: guilt, mixed with defensive fury.

_I don't have to explain myself to you_, say the eyes of the boy who let his brother stand up on that stage all alone, the boy who watched his brother starve while he ate supper every night, who saw his blood leak out onto the grass while he sat safe in his house surrounded by family. _I didn't volunteer for my brother, but _you're_ the one who killed him. _

Claudius half expects some long speech, crafted to perfection after half a year of churning resentment, but there's nothing. Nothing except a long, taut silence, stretched out thinner and thinner as everyone in the square waits for something to break the surface.

He sees the gun come up before it happens. Claudius might be drugged but he's still a fighter with over a decade of training, and he recognizes the sudden bunch of muscles in the boy's neck and shoulder, the shift to the side so he can bring his arm up to bear. Claudius drops - a knife he could dodge or block but guns aren't allowed in the Arena and he's never trained to defend himself - and he waits for Lyme to fall beside him, her arm over his shoulders, but she's not there. He tenses, alert for the _crack_ of a Peacekeeper's pistol, but that doesn't happen either.

Claudius raises his head, and Lyme's not on the stage at all. She's on the ground, a wall of muscle in front of the brother, who's hunched and holding his shoulder and grimacing in pain, and she stares at him with all the confidence of a woman who stands there because she murdered ten other teenagers to get here. "Back down," she says, and her voice is calm and steely and sends a shiver down Claudius' spine. "Go home. Hug your mother." Lyme opens one hand, and the bullets fall to the ground with a series of dull clangs against the concrete. She tosses the empty gun on the ground, then turns her back on him and vaults back onto the stage.

Through it all, the Peacekeepers haven't moved. Claudius expected them to charge, to beat the brother to a pulp for his show of defiance, but while they're ready, they're also waiting. Adrenaline pounds through Claudius' veins, breaking through the haze of medication, and he thinks that they let this happen. They let a gun into the crowd - not a rifle or a shotgun or anything that might be useful against coyotes or whatever they have out here but a handgun, and that means stolen, and that means probably from a Peacekeeper. They let the brother shove his way to the stage. They let Lyme stop him herself. Whether they knew ahead of time or not, they still decided not to stop it, and it's too many what-ifs in a row for it to be by chance.

It could just be because they knew Lyme would save him and that would make a better show, or because any Capitol intervention would likely cause a riot, but Claudius can't help thinking otherwise. That they don't care what happens to him. That he's the villain in this piece, and they want to avoid turning any anger away from him and onto the Capitol for thwarting the attempt at revenge. The Capitol saw a boy try to murder their Victor and they let it happen.

Lyme pulls Claudius to his feet, and it's not until they're halfway off stage that the Peacekeepers follow in a protective phalanx. Claudius listens for the hail of bullets or the whistle of whips to signal that the audience is being punished for the outburst, but there's nothing save the quiet chaos of a crowd that large being made to disperse. Fear slams into Claudius hard enough that he stumbles, and Lyme hooks an arm around his waist to keep him steady.

They skip the dinner altogether and go right for the train. Lyme is spitting, and she orders everyone out of the car and forces Claudius to sit before pressing a mug into his hand. Claudius nearly drops it, and she leans against the table to hold his hands steady while he drinks. It can't be more sedatives or Claudius will overdose, but whatever it is works its magic, sending a slow warmth spreading through his muscles.

"They don't care if I die," Claudius says into the mug, quiet enough that if Lyme weren't a foot away she wouldn't catch it.

Lyme's teeth grind so loudly Claudius imagines he hears it. "I do," she snarls, and Claudius' chest twists.

That night she stays inside his room, cross-legged in front of the door with a knife in her lap. Claudius falls asleep to the comforting _snick-snick_ of her sharpening the blade against a block.

* * *

_District Eight_

Eight is grey. The buildings, the sky, the freezing rain, the smoke, the clinging slush on the cement, all of it is grey. Grey like dirt. Grey like defeat. The square reeks of factory chemicals and smog and a hint of the sewer, but also the sharp tang of the press of unwashed bodies. District Eight is the most heavily populated in all of Panem despite coming in around the middle in terms of area, and the square is packed with people. Unlike at the Reaping, few have made more than a cursory effort to look presentable. Why should they?

Resentment simmers here, too; Claudius hasn't forgotten, and neither will they, that it was their boy who lost it in the interviews, the one who sobbed and begged to know why he and the others stood there when so many of them had older siblings to take their place. The one who said he wished he lived in Two because they never let innocent children die.

That boy - Marcus - was the second tribute Claudius killed, the last whose face and district he failed to recall in the blood frenzy at the Cornucopia, and the people here have no love for Claudius now. No pity for the trained killer who slaughtered seven children in his psychotic quest for a mommy, who killed their tribute with barely a glance and never saw the body hit the ground.

But they have no real hate for him, either, Claudius thinks, as he makes his speech and looks out at the dull resignation on their faces. Something burns below the surface here but it's deeper, broader in scope; like in Ten, they look beyond him to the ones at the top of the pile. Claudius notes just as many dark looks at the white-uniformed Peacekeepers, who stand straight and stark against the backdrop of the crumbling Justice Building, as there are at him.

The elderly male Victor sits slumped in his seat on the stage, plied quiet and half-conscious with alcohol like most of the middle districts, but the woman - Claudius remembers the year of her victory (61) and her weapon of choice (poison) before her name (Sally, no, Celia, no, Cecilia, that's it) - is different. She's the youngest Victor he's seen on the Tour yet, mid-twenties maybe, and she's dark and quiet and watchful, standing with a babbling infant on her hip and another small boy around four years old clinging to her skirt.

Claudius can't imagine having kids, and he lives in a district where he'd never have to worry about them standing up on that stage. Sometimes he thinks the non-Career districts have just lost their collective minds, gone all-out crazy because it's better than trying to live through all this and stay sane.

Cecilia leaves her children with her husband when it's time for the Victors' dinner, and while her partner snoozes with his cheek flat against the tablecloth, she reaches over and touches Claudius' hand. Her fingers are cool, her grip gentle yet firm, and Claudius holds very still. On his other side, Lyme's hand tightens around her fork. "You did what you had to do in there," Cecilia says in a quiet, reserved voice. "We all did. That's why we're here."

Claudius swallows hard, and it's stupid, weak and unbefitting of a Career but his eyes sting anyway, and he has to set down his glass before he spills his mulled cider. He turns to glance at her, and her eyes are blue and deep and hold him still with the depth of their hurt and understanding. She looks at him, not as a fellow Victor, as a competing mentor, or as an enemy, but as a mother would to someone else's son, and Claudius can't breathe. "I'm glad you found what you were looking for," Cecilia says, and she glances over his shoulder to Lyme. He hears Lyme set down the fork, the creaking of her chair as she settles into a more relaxed posture.

"So am I," Claudius says, and Cecilia's smile is sad, but real.

Claudius sleeps without the aid of pills that night. The boy he killed visits his dreams, but before he can say anything to Claudius, Cecilia appears in a soft, white gown with the moonlight shining in her hair, and she leads Marcus away into the darkness with a gentle hand on his shoulder.

* * *

_District Seven_

Most years, Seven is just another district no one cares about - it has rocks and trees and lakes and a smattering of mountains; it's cold and starkly picturesque from afar and dirt-poor close up, and the most interesting thing about it are the tall tales of toddlers flinging axes in the woods alongside their giant lumberjack parents. The Capitol fashionistas constantly bemoan its predilection for plaid and flannel.

The spotlight created by Johanna Mason's win in the 66th Games would be fading now, the district moving back into happy obscurity, except that Claudius' little stunt with the Seven boy - Jeremy, remember - tossed it right back into the public consciousness again. Claudius didn't have much time or mental clarity to give it thought before, but as the train shoots through the narrow gap in the forests, the dark, snow-topped pines whipping past his window, he wonders what it must be like to be famous again, not for the one who lived but for the one who didn't. For hope extinguished instead of kindled.

Seven is important; apart from the Capitol and Four, the home of his carefully-crafted rivalry, it's the most crucial stop on the Tour, and Claudius knows it. He and Lyme go over the scenarios again and again, the various ways it might play out depending on whether the boy's family will be allowed to come on stage and see him, and what he'll say. President Snow's threats at the end of his celebration week mean that Claudius can't lend too much sympathy to his role at the risk of making himself too memorable and dangerous, but he can't just toss it aside, either. DISTRICT TWO, MALE and DISTRICT SEVEN, MALE - Claudius and the boy with his father's name - are woven too tightly together in the fabric of the 67th Hunger Games for him to under-perform and leave the audience disappointed.

He can't be dazed and drugged for this, and so he gets his minimum dose and nothing more. Before they leave the train, Lyme chases everyone into a different car, and they fight, quick and dirty and ludicrous surrounded by cherry-wood panelling and crystal chandeliers and tiers of delicate glass goblets and trays of desserts. They knock over a wine bottle, but Lyme catches it with her foot, tosses it back up and snatches it out of the air with her hand. Claudius laughs in spite of himself, and she shoots him a grim smile before pushing him against the wall.

"You can do this, D," Lyme tells him, eyes hard, and it's reassurance and a command both, and it acts as a balm on his crazed, fraying nerves. "I'm gonna be right there with you the whole time. A few hours and then it's back to the train."

Claudius nods, his throat tight, and Lyme's hand is firm against his chest. He soaks in her strength, leaning his head back against the wall and closing his eyes, allowing himself a few minutes of weakness to prepare. Lyme tugs him in for a long hug, gripping hard, and Claudius lets her steady him before pulling back. "I can do this," he repeats, and he clasps his hands behind his back so he's not tempted to check his fingernails for Jeremy's blood.

It's bitter cold - Claudius has never been this far north - and he stands onstage in a soft wool coat that would have been more than adequate even in the mountains of Two but which still leaves him shivering now. Seven is far from a rich district, with lots of trees but very little arable land for local food production, but everyone in the square is dressed for the weather no matter how patched and worn their coats, which tells him all he needs to know about the winter climate in a glance.

The crowd at the ceremony is quiet and watchful, waiting but not restless. The square feels like one giant indrawn breath, and Claudius tries not to let himself get caught up in it but there's only so much he can do. He barely listens to the canned speeches from the mayor and the official District Seven escort, instead sending out searching glances through the audience, trying to make out any facial features that might belong to the family of the Seven boy - Jeremy's family. It's hopeless, Claudius knows that, but the ring sits against his chest under his jacket, and the longer the ceremony takes, the heavier it feels until it nearly drags him to his knees.

At last the escort steps back up to the microphone, and this is it. Now or never. Claudius fists his hands, his fingers barely closing in his thick, fur-lined gloves. They mean it to be a surprise, of course, but Lyme is a mentor and a Two besides, and with privilege comes information: she found out after they arrived that Claudius would be invited to return the ring in person himself.

"And now we have a special treat," the escort says, and Claudius can't stop looking at her hair, spiked and green like a tree and threaded with tiny, coloured bulbs. "I believe our new Victor has something special for a certain someone in the audience."

Behind him, Johanna Mason - petite, hard as nails and half-mad, sporting a wolf's smile and a handshake that made Claudius want to look over his shoulder - snorts into her hand, but Claudius tunes her out. He can deal with her later; for now he can't afford the distraction, and he puts himself back into Career tunnel-vision. He lets his gaze flick over the crowd, and there he sees it; the people parting into two streams to allow a woman to make her way to the stage. She has Jeremy's light brown hair, and Claudius can't make out her build under the heavy winter coat she wears, but her hood is pushed back and he sees the same tired sharpness in her features, the same soft brown eyes. He sucks his teeth, the only nervous gesture he's allowed in front of the cameras because it doesn't show.

Claudius reaches inside his jacket, curls his fingers around the leather thong and raises it over his head. "Jeremy asked me to return this," he says, and it's simple and understated but it's the line Lyme gave him, and she told him that the last thing he'll want to do is make it a grand, theatrical gesture. His mother holds out her hand, and Claudius puts the ring in her palm. He actually places it there, lets their fingers touch and twine together instead of dangling it by the bootlace and pulling back, and he says nothing and she says nothing and the moment stretches out in silence.

He and Lyme practiced on the train, and at the time it seemed ridiculous, formal and underwhelming and nowhere near enough, but now their eyes meet, and Claudius understands. He understands because he sees them both projected two stories high on the screen behind her and knows there's a matching tableau in her line of vision as well. He understands because the Capitol escorts sigh and clasp their hands and make commentary about inter-district friendship and the true spirit of the Games, because there are flashbulbs exploding everywhere and somewhere in the Capitol, commentators with jewels on their eyelids will be cooing over the beauty of the moment.

He understands because a spike of rage drives itself through his chest that they couldn't do this alone; that they couldn't just meet in the Justice Building, that he couldn't hand her the ring and tell her everything about her son that the cameras didn't show - that he was spunky and brave even through his terror in the training sessions, that he used his last hours of life not to babble or beg for mercy but to talk about his family, to vomit up every good memory he had so he could wrap himself in a blanket of words and nostalgia and take them with him into death.

He hates that the escorts are right, just not the way they think: that this is what the Games are, this is the true spirit, that what should have been a private moment is splashed across television screens across the nation and perverted into greedy viewer entertainment.

Claudius looks her in the eye and sees the same understanding, the same helpless anger, reflected on her face, but there's nothing he can do. In desperation, Claudius tightens his fingers, and after a second she grips back.

Her touch stays with him like a brand against his skin long after the train whirs back south through the sea of pine.

* * *

_Halfway Point_

Not even the medication can stop the dreams now. It's too many faces, too much hate and bitterness, too many children dancing behind his eyelids when he tries to sleep. He keeps the staff of the train awake with his screaming; he hears some of the attendants muttering about how inconsiderate he's being before Lyme storms out, an avenging angel with cropped hair and massive biceps, and nearly flings them over the side of the train and out onto the tracks.

They stand by his bed, the eighteen twelve-year-olds, and their faces shimmer and melt and merge in an unchanging mass. _Who am I_, they ask him, and they dig their fingers with their sharp little nails into his shoulder, his face, searching for his eyes. _Who am I? Do you remember? Who killed me? Was it you?_

Claudius tries to say no - no, no, _no no no I don't know I don't know I don't I don't_ - but his mouth is full of dust and blood and chalk and cobwebs and the screams choke his throat. There's a knife in his hand - the dagger he used in his private session with the Gamemakers - and he tries to drop it, fling it far across the room, but the hilt is molten and it hisses and sears itself with the flesh of his palm so he can't let go. Two of the children hold his arm, the blade extended, and one by one the others climb up onto the bed and fall forward onto the dagger. The ones behind pull them off, toss their bodies on the floor, then continue the cycle. Their tears, blood and bile splash across his chest and face.

Lyme pulls him awake, and Claudius sobs and clings to her. "I didn't kill them," Claudius says, and he speaks the words to the air, to the silent, imaginary gods that sit in judgement and look down on him with scorn. "I didn't."

Lyme runs her hands through her hair, then her fingers tangle and twist, yanking his head back until he hisses in shock and pain. "Of course you did," she says, sugar-sweet, and her fingers trail down his face, her nails long and sharp and red, bright red, except that Lyme's fingers are blunt like a man's and her nails bitten to the quick, and Claudius can't breathe. "You killed all of them, because that's what you do," she says. "This is what you are." Her hand slides down to his chest, digs in through flesh and muscle and bone and rips out his heart.

She's there, again, when he wakes - again - and the room is quiet and the train sways smoothly along the tracks, and Claudius backs himself away from her until he hits the wall, throwing up his hands to protect his face. "Whoa," Lyme says, eyes wide in the semi-darkness, and she holds up her hands and doesn't try to touch him. "It's okay, D. It's me."

"Hands!" Claudius shouts like a crazy person - _he is a crazy person_ - and Lyme holds them out. He grabs them, fingers digging into her palms, and turns them over, examining the short, unvarnished nails, the calluses on her fingers and at the top of her palm from training and lifting weights. He lets go and digs the heels of his hands against his eye sockets.

"Tell me," Claudius demands, his breath ragged and sticking like broken razors in his chest. "Tell me why you chose me."

Lyme settles herself on the other end of the bed, her hands dangling between her bent knees. "Well, once upon a time there was a little boy nobody wanted, and a killer who, turns out, really liked putting lost, broken things back together..."

Claudius closes his eyes. Her voice doesn't turn sibilant, doesn't tell him he's a monster - Lyme's fingers don't transform into snakes, she doesn't stick her claws into his heart, the ghosts don't float through the walls - and when he opens his eyes again it's morning and there's no blood in the air; just the warm smell of fresh muffins, wafting in from the dining car.


	10. Chapter 9: Victory Tour, Part 2

**Victory Tour, Part 2: All I See is Grey**

_District Six_

"Make sure you leave everything you don't absolutely need to take with you on the train," says Flora, Claudius' escort, in an undertone. The sky outside is an ominous slate grey with a puce cast, and Claudius can't tell if it's clouds or smog or a combination of both. "The people here have sticky fingers. It's most uncivilized."

Claudius glances at Lyme, eyebrows furrowed in question, and she draws him aside with the pretence of brushing lint off the shoulders of his jacket. "Most of the population in the main cities are addicts," Lyme says. "They'll sell their children for a fix. Half the tributes who go in are morphlants."

Morphlants are children born already addicted to the drug because their mothers partook while pregnant; the boy this year might have been one of them, sad, twitchy, wide-eyed and hollow-cheeked. Claudius vaguely remembers that being a footnote in a textbook when he was in school, but he didn't pay much attention to it. He does recall thinking that the tributes from Six tended to be pale and sickly, but he'd assumed it had more to do with the pollution from the auto factories and the district's famed smog and lack of sunlight.

Claudius is, once again, grateful for District Two and everything it stands for. Life in the quarries might be hard and the miners might be dirt poor, but their children can take as much tesserae as they need without ever fearing for their lives because of Victors like him. And Victors like him will never turn to morphling - never approach their mentoring duties so high that they send their tributes shiny vials of glitter and tubes of paint like the Sixes are famous for doing - because of mentors like Lyme.

He doesn't have much time to think about it. Lyme presses his elbow and leads him out onto the stage, and Claudius looks out into the square and the dead-eyed faces staring back at him. He sees fewer people with the telltale jaundiced tint to their skin than he was expecting - they'll have cleared the crowds maybe, he thinks, kept the worst ones out - and much more bitterness and resigned, hardened distaste for a people who should be numbed with pleasant drugs. The people in Six, the ones who haven't turned to chemical escape, may have no hope, but they do have a sullen, venomous discontent.

Claudius can't tell if they've filtered out the worst of the addicts for the cameras, or because they wouldn't care who it is standing on the stage. He does know those aren't appropriate thoughts, and like always, he shoves them back. Lyme's hand is warm between his shoulder blades, and Claudius leans back to feel the contact through his jacket.

The smog sticks in his throat and makes his words rasp during his speech. The skyline is nothing but a sprawling, grasping stretch of buildings, high-rises and factories and warehouses, and every now and then the subway roars and rumbles like a monster beneath him, causing the ground to tremble. He's heard the pollution used to make the sunsets in Six brilliant, the sky a bright, flaming scarlet, but now there's too much and too many buildings and everything is just a washed-out grey and orange all the time. Flora told him on the train that nowadays no one in the main city has ever even seen a sunset unless they've made it out to the rural areas; the sun disappears behind the buildings, and then it's dark. She called it 'exotic', a unique opportunity that doesn't exist anywhere else in Panem. If Claudius had the time, he'd wonder how she thought she was convincing anyone.

Six does not care about the boy on the stage. Several yawn as Claudius gives his speech, but he can't tell if it's meant to make a point or if they really have just tuned the whole thing out. Likely no one but the families of the tributes killed remembers whether he killed them at all. No one has won in Six since before the second Quarter Quell. The odds are never in anyone's favour, not really, but sometimes they're in even less favour for some than others.

He's heard even the Peacekeepers in Six are using, that it's a shit gig but it has its perks because the Peacekeepers get a share of the good stuff before it's sent to the Capitol, unlike the dirty drugs cut with Snow-knows-what that get filtered out to the streets. Like with most rumours, Claudius doesn't remember who told him that. It's possible he invented the whole thing himself.

Lyme weaned him off his drugs on the long train ride down from Seven, because in Six he has to look even more alert than usual. If he's in the morphling district with glassy eyes and swaying gait then who knows what statement people might think he's making - and which people might be thinking it. And so Claudius stands soldier-straight, shoulders back and head high. The weight of all the exhaustion from the crowd rolls over him like a wave, but he doesn't waver, and after he's done Lyme kisses his hair and tells him that he's perfect.

* * *

_District Five_

Claudius leafs through Lyme's files on District Five because his skin crawls with the need to do something, to quiet the buzzing in his brain. He and Lyme spar ever chance they get now to try to settle his head, but without regular sleep even that has limits. The notes say that Five has the fewest number of children claiming tesserae of any district in Panem - Two is in the top third, funnily enough, because life in the quarries is hard and they know they'll never have to pay the price for it so it doesn't matter - but they don't give numbers or percentages, so that doesn't mean much.

Still, Five is in a funny place. The power plants aren't anywhere near as punishing to work at as the mines in Twelve or the quarries in Two, and unlike Twelve, whose coal reserves don't go past Nine, the Capitol actually uses the power they produce. After the loss of District Thirteen at the end of the Dark Days, Five got a bump in status as the only major supplier of energy for the entire country. Their privilege doesn't extend to wealth, like the urban citizens of One, or to the training of their children as Careers, but the cost of living is lower, the tariffs more reasonable.

They lost their male tribute in the bloodbath, when the boy from Four held him up by the hair and slit his throat, taunting Claudius for his cowardice. The girl died alone, screaming at the skies until the quicksand that slowly swallowed her filled her mouth. Her only sponsor gift was a bolt of lightning that stopped her heart before she drowned in the sludge. It was an act of quiet near-rebellion, that mercy strike bought and paid for by the sweat of her fellow citizens, and Claudius thinks this is why they recoil from him now. He looks into the crowd and meets their eyes as their gazes slide away from his, from one not-quite-traitor to another.

Five is a district that is both favoured and ignored, and Claudius imagines they must like it that way. They want nothing to do with the interloper, with Claudius and his uneasy truce with the Capitol, the boy who might be praised by commentators one minute and shot dead by Peacekeepers the next, depending on what words leave his mouth. Five is, perhaps, the district that understands him and his slippery position the best, and in their kinship they see something to be shunned, avoided, kept at a distance. Claudius recognizes it in the taut lines of their faces, the fear of association that keeps their applause scattered, brittle.

Five's only male Victor gives Claudius a baleful look through red-rimmed, rheumy eyes. The stink of alcohol and stale vomit pushes its way into Claudius' nostrils, but he's used to it now. He won the year after Lyme, Claudius remembers, and he can't help charting the contrast between Lyme's strong shoulders and sharp, clear gaze a decade onward with the staggering, slumped figure who needs a chair with arms so he doesn't slide off it onto the ground.

In ten years, which one of them will Claudius be? He swallows and adds that thought to the 'forbidden' pile.

Toward the end of the dinner, the Victor heaves himself to his feet, staggers toward Claudius and clutches at his shirt, fingers crabbed and clawed. "You show 'em," he says, and Claudius holds his breath against the assault on his olfactory senses. "Fuck- fuckers. You show 'em. Stay ugly, friend. That'll stick 'em in the eye."

Claudius recoils, barking his hip off the chair and sending it skittering across the floor, the thump when it finally falls sending a jolt through his spine. Then Lyme is there, prying the other's fingers out of Claudius' shirt and leading him away, and Claudius wants to sag against her but he can't, not in public. He lets the thump of fear in his heart drive him until they're outside, the kiss of falling snow on his cheeks. He looks up at the grey night sky, the swirl of clouds obscuring the stars and the pale smudge of moon behind the fog, and breathes.

* * *

_District Four_

They hate him.

Traditionally, Districts Two and Four have a professional rivalry, friendly but with an edge beneath it, where the jokes hide knives and the smiles often come before a blow, but there's still a shared camaraderie between them. They're Careers and their Victors are stronger, more solid, than the pretty pieces of fluff from One that are grown to facilitate that district's other secret trade. Twos and Fours are built to endure, and while their tributes still hack each other to pieces like everyone else, they share a realistic sense of brotherhood.

Not this year. Not with a double murder, both the Fours finding grisly death at Claudius' hand.

Some of the Victors seem to understand, at least. One of them is an older man about as big as Lyme with a hammerhead shark tattooed across his bicep, and at two o'clock the next morning Claudius will remember his name is Tyde but at the time all he cares about is that the man gives Claudius a nod and a smile that might even count as encouraging. The others don't go all the way to smiling, but they do acknowledge him with a wave or a look, and that's something, at least.

As for the crowd, well. The people, bronzed and browned, sun-bleached and sun-burned, with lean bodies and ropy muscles and scars from fishhooks, fish scales, fishing lines on their hands and forearms, stares at Claudius with unbridled hatred. For the first time since Nine, Claudius feels the twist of fear in his gut. The other districts might dislike him, might look at the stage and see a murderer, a child-killer, a Capitol lapdog with the indecency to whine about the quality of its food, but Four - Four despises him. Their hatred rolls and billows like the sea during a storm, and Claudius is afraid to put his foot in lest the undertow drag him in and never let him go.

He doesn't have much to say about Marina, the girl - she and Claudius had no real interaction, other than the typical posturing, and he pushed her into the river and let the fire do the rest and that's the most time they spent together the whole month - but the boy (Percy, short for Perseus), Claudius has a fair bit to atone for. They chose each other as rivals and that's important; if the poison had got to Claudius any sooner, Percy would have been expected to give him a proper send off in Two.

It's too late to save the boy he killed or to take back what Claudius did to his image in the Games, and like with Nikita, all Claudius can do is give him the honour of a worthy remembrance. He talks about Percy's determination, his skill, his strength, and leaves out the part where Claudius forced him into the role of soulless villain to save his own hide. He doesn't say he would have liked to be friends, if the situation were different; Claudius doesn't know if he would, because he and Percy never had an honest two seconds together, and either way he thinks the crowd might rise up like a tidal wave and tear him to pieces. Still, no matter how hard he tries, it's pomp and pageantry, and not one person in the sea before him thanks him for it.

It's always like this, with the final two, Lyme warned him the night before, especially an established rivalry. That much hope, that much investment - it's one thing to feel bitterness at the one who cut down your tributes in the first five minutes, but at least then it's over, and by the time the victory trumpets play then it's been weeks and some of the raw pain has scabbed over. The final two, though, that's days and weeks on end of hoping, and each day that passes is another day where _maybe_ turns into an aching _please_, and that last death is a blow straight through to the heart.

_Second place_, the Capitol calls it; _just as dead as twenty-fourth_ said the trainers in the Centre with grim, thin mouths, two years ago when fourteen-year-old Finnick Odair, the golden-skinned wonder boy, shoved his trident through Athena's chest. The prongs caught on her sternum on the way out and cracked it open, and the entire room full of killers-in-training gasped aloud when her ribs sprang apart like bloody dragonfly wings. The Capitol cooed over Odair's angelic looks and sly-sweet smile, but Claudius only ever saw the devil dancing behind his eyes.

Claudius thought, as the train pulled up along the choppy coast, that they could be friends anyway, he and Odair: because they're both Careers and Victors of short, brutal Games; because they understand the pressure of lifelong training and the sick pleasure-fear of victory; because Odair might be remembered for his looks now, but he has even more blood beneath his fingernails than Claudius, with ten Arena kills to Claudius' seven. And Claudius might have killed Percy but Odair killed Athena and that makes them even, surely, but one moment of eye contact between them and Claudius feels like Odair rammed poison barbs right through Claudius' skull.

Claudius sucks in a breath and nearly stumbles, and just like that it's gone, the flash of animosity and - _jealousy?_ that can't be right - that burned in Odair's sea-green eyes. "Good show," Odair says easily, and his words are slippery like sea eels, like the net he wove that trapped Athena and kept her helpless as he speared her like a porpoise. He drags his gaze over Claudius' face, the sharp hook of his nose and angled cheekbones. "Shame about your face. I'm surprised the Capitol hasn't offered to give you a new one."

He's not the first one to make a crack about Claudius' looks, but he is the first non-Capitol citizen to do it openly and with a smile, and Claudius swallows bile and disappointment. There will be no friends for him, he thinks, not from this generation of victors; all he can hope is that somewhere in the next few years Two wins again and gives him a miracle.

Finnick Odair is sixteen years old and beautiful - enough that even Claudius, who shut down that part of himself in training because he didn't have the time, feels a stirring inside him, not of desire but of wonder and yearning - and he wields that beauty with every bit of precision that he did his trident. He wraps it around him like armour and weapon both, and something about it - about Claudius and his ugliness, which compared to a normal person is a passing plainness but in the presence of Odair is practically a deformation - makes Odair hate him.

Claudius doesn't understand, but it's not his job to, and anything that's not his job is a distraction. He smiles anyway. "Some of us aren't lucky enough to be born gorgeous," he says, and he doesn't mean for his words to have the scrape of steel on stone but they do. "Maybe the Capitol decided not to mess with what nature gave me."

Odair's eyes flicker, and there it is again, the tightness that if Claudius didn't know better would think was envy. That's twice now but it makes no more sense the second time around; if anyone should be jealous it's Claudius, branded a monster even as a child by his little killer's face long before he ever took another's life. Meanwhile Odair speared forty percent of his fellow tributes in a matter of days - emerged splattered in their blood, steaming in the chilled morning air - and no one cares. They love him just because he's beautiful.

No, Claudius thinks, jealousy from Odair is ridiculous, but he'll be reaped if he can figure out what's actually going on here.

Mags, famous and revered as District Four's first victor and Odair's mentor, touches her fingers to the back of Odair's hand. "Finnick, _mi hijo_," she says, age and accent thickening her words so that Claudius has to fight to understand. "Why don't you go back home?"

Odair nods. "I'll see you back in the Capitol," he says to Claudius, and he's smoothed his expression and pulled the daggers from his tone but still Claudius feels unsettled. His mouth twists. "I've started spending a lot of time there, these days."

Claudius watches him go, and he's lost and drowning and he wants to go home. He looks over at Lyme to see if she has any answers, only to jump at the stiffness in her posture, her clenched fists and taut jaw, and she looks at Mags with a pained, sickened comprehension that leaves Claudius floundering all the harder.

"No," Lyme says in a low voice, and she's been a mentor for a decade and plays the game better than everyone else but Claudius hears true rage in her, and that shocks him more than anything. "They're not. They can't be. Tell me I'm wrong."

Mags shakes her head, her weathered face grave, and something passes between them, unspoken yet understood. "Take care of him," she says slowly, and her eyes slide to Claudius and back to Lyme. Her fingers tighten on the handle of her walking stick, a gnarled piece of driftwood. "Let him fade away." Lyme nods, her throat working, and Mags turns to Claudius. She holds out a hand and grasps his, and her hands are as old and twisted as the stick she carries but there's strength enough to startle him. "You're good for each other," she says. "You treasure that."

"Yes ma'am," Claudius says, because what else is there to say.

That night, as the train shoots out from the station along the curve of the sea, Lyme pulls a knife from nowhere and buries it to the hilt in the wood panelling across the room. Claudius sits bolt upright, but she holds out a hand to warn him back, shoulders heaving. "What's the matter?" Claudius demands.

Lyme swallows. "He's sixteen," she says, and she's not talking to Claudius, not registering him at all. "He's fucking _sixteen_, and Snow only knows when it started."

"I don't understand," Claudius says, and he sounds small and plaintive and childish in his own ears.

He waits for Lyme to explain, to put the pieces together for him, but instead she sucks a breath through her teeth. "Good," she says instead. "Topic's closed."

Claudius tries a few more times until she pins him down and tells him _drop it, Claudius, now_ in a hard voice, and then he does - of course he does. Afterward Lyme pulls him in for a hug so strong it makes him cry out, but even then she doesn't let go, just holds him, breath shuddering, until the overhead chime announces they've passed the district boundary.

Claudius doesn't sleep that night. Neither does Lyme. They sit on the floor in front of Claudius' bed and watch the cooking channel in silence. Eventually Claudius leans his head against her shoulder, and Lyme lets out a ragged sigh.

He still doesn't understand, but for once, he decides he doesn't want to.

* * *

_District Three_

After the drama of Four, Three is a relief. The Victors - and Claudius knows their names, he does, but the longer the Tour goes the less detail he can pull out of his gauze-wrapped brain - live in their own little world, but they're the gentle, twitchy kind of crazy that makes them faraway and friendly instead of hostile. Nobody smells and nobody vomits, though the woman does try to dance with him on stage before her fellow mentor tugs her back.

District Three lies poor and forgotten between two Career districts, both its Victors winning through a quiet, unassuming cunning that gave rise to diabolic technological murder in the final days, and the people know how not to make waves. They look through Claudius with a studied disinterest, but their disdain, he thinks, is less for the part where he's alive and their tributes are dead, and more that he frowns in confusion when their Mayor uses words with five syllables.

In Two, 'Threeish' is used as an insult for someone who knows his books but can't fight or work for shit. Meanwhile, a few years ago, Claudius remembers the tribute from Three smacking his district partner's hand away from a booby-trapped backpack and snapping, "Don't be such a fucking Two!" Claudius doesn't need to be huge and muscled to be associated with that moniker here; he's an uneducated idiot, as far as the engineering district is concerned, and that's enough.

Still. Claudius will take their dismissal of him after everything else, and at dinner the female Victor hands him a tiny insect, intricately formed from twisted wire and bits of electronics. "Thank you," Claudius says, his throat tightening, and she pats him on the cheek with a distant smile.

_Wiress_, Claudius' brain recalls, finally; winner of the 58th - the year after Lyme's first tribute won her Games - and he watches as she hums to herself and constructs a palace from a tray full of silverware.

"She's not always like that," Lyme says on the train that night, looking out the window of the glittering lights of Three's cities as they flash past. "The rest of the year, when I've seen her, she's quiet, but lucid. Just, the Games, the Tour, it all comes back. I'm still not sure how much of it she puts on just to keep people from bothering her. It's a good strategy, really, for those who can afford it."

She sounds weary. Lyme could never get away with faking or exaggerating insanity as a means to escape; she works the whole year round gathering sponsors, getting information, working the Capitol and the numbers and everything else. Claudius wonders if she ever wishes she could just run away and be a crazy hermit who makes beetles out of wire. He doesn't ask. She doesn't offer.

* * *

_District Two (Passing Through)_

Claudius cries out as the train whirrs through District Two without stopping, even though he knows, in the end, he'll be much more grateful to finish there, to know that once he's home he's _home_, no more Capitol, no more Tour, no more cameras. He knows, but right now it's so close - the trees and the jagged mountains, the flat grey of the quarries, the frozen turquoise lakes ringed by pine trees - and he wishes the windows opened so he could at least stick his hand outside and breathe the crisp, clean air.

Lyme reaches across the seat and squeezes his shoulder, slides her hand up into his hair and ruffles it like he's a child, though he's sniffling like one so fair enough. "Almost," she says. "Another week, and you'll be home."

Claudius wipes his nose and stares out the window, aching for a flash of the Victors' Village, but it's protected from the tracks by a ring of mountains. He stays there with his forehead pressed against the pane until they cross over into One.

* * *

_District One (Forgotten)_

Gemstones have to come from somewhere.

It's a nonsense thought that flashes through Claudius' mind as the train whips its way through the outskirts of One. One is the jewel in the Capitol's crown; every picture in every textbook shows the citizens of One as living in finery, as reflected in the ridiculous names the parents tend to give their children. Every jingle about diamonds and rubies and other stones that Claudius could not give less of a damn about sings about _District One, where luxury is born_, completing the image of One being just a step down from Capitol in terms of everyday wealth. An early textbook showed children picking gemstones off the rocks and playing them like jacks.

Claudius has never thought anything about it, and wouldn't, except that he's still looking out the window when a gap in the trees reveals a low, flat stretch of ground that looks suspiciously like a pit mine. He only has a second before it's gone, and Claudius sits up straight. "What was that?" he demands, glad to have something else to think about besides the ache in his chest where he misses home.

"What?" Lyme asks, dragging herself out of a guilty doze.

Claudius strains for another glance, but the snow flurries and the rows of trees obscure any hope of catching anything else. Claudius might have grown up well-off but he knows what mines look like - anyone with even basic public education has gone through that, the lessons on geology, on the techniques for hewing worthwhile rock from the ground, and he recognized the expanse of gravel and tangle of machinery. "It was a mine."

Lyme runs her tongue over her teeth, which is something she does when she's trying to decide whether to hide something from him. "Could be."

This is important. Claudius' brain is full of medicine but not the kind that leaves him muzzy - he feels sharp, aware, and the edges of everything spark with light and he feels like if he just looked a little harder he could strip away the surface of everything and see right down to the bones and wire that underlie the world. "They told us they have machines to make diamonds out of graphite," he says. He remembers the paragraph in the textbook. It didn't say how.

Lyme settles back against her chair. "Could be, I don't really know much about it."

"But -" Claudius wets his lips, his mind abuzz. "But where do they get the graphite? All the mines in District Thirteen are toxic, they say so every year, and it doesn't come from Twelve, or Two. So where do they get it?"

"Claudius," Lyme says, and this time her voice is flat with warning. "Don't ask questions."

Claudius shakes his head, and the very fact that Lyme is telling him to stop means he's right because Lyme never tells him to stop. She's always honest with him in the end. "They mine it here, don't they," he says, and he splays his fingers against the window, pulls them back and watches the warm smear of fog from his fingertips fade away. "District One. It's not just luxury. They have poor areas, too."

It makes sense. District Two, officially, is the home of masonry and stonework, not Peacekeepers and weapons like everyone who's past the age of six knows is the truth. Just like there's no such thing as the Career Farm, just the Athletic and Personal Growth Centre that most definitely doesn't train children how to kill. As the story goes, District One is the glittering gem of wealth and privilege in the midst of the rubble - District Two is the Capitol's guard dog and One is the spoiled, purring lap-cat - except that's a lie, too. It isn't, not everywhere.

The gemstones that One is famous for turning into gaudy jewellery and furniture for the Capitol come from somewhere, and very likely it's right here. Some people in One drink out of crystal goblets and have diamonds sewn into their hair, but the crystal and the diamonds get there because elsewhere people are working, choking, dying in the dark to get them.

It's like the machines in the Capitol that create food from nothing, except it isn't nothing, is it, it's fish from Four, grains from Nine, meat from Ten, fruit and vegetables and distilled sugar from Eleven, it all comes from elsewhere and gets funnelled back in, where the Capitol erases the supply lines and turns it into magic from the all-knowing, all-giving source of life. Like Peacekeepers.

Like power.

"Claudius," Lyme says, sharp, and she sits forward. "Stop it. Stop thinking right now."

"But -" Claudius grips the edge of his seat until his fingers ache. It's lies, isn't it, lies all the way down. Lies built on lies built on lies and the whole country is a shifting sea of lies.

"Claudius, listen to me." Lyme grips his chin, holding him still, and her eyes dig into his and bore through his soul, find the thoughts swirling in his brain and wrench them away. "You think you're the first to think about this? You think you're really that smart that nobody else has come up with it? Whatever you're thinking, I promise you you're not the first, not by a long shot."

Claudius swallows. "But why -"

"Because everyone who lets themselves think it, someday they say it," Lyme says, and the edge in her voice presses against his throat like the flat of a sword. "And once they say it, they never say anything again. Do you hear me? I am not letting you die all over again just because you're stupid enough to think you're smarter than everyone else, just like _everyone else who's dead_."

Claudius grits his teeth, desperation scrabbling at the inside of his skull, but then Lyme shifts like she's going to knock him down and fight him and he realizes she's right. She's right because he's right, and as long as he's right and knows he's right then she's in danger, because they can torture him until he's nothing but a bleeding lump of former-human and it still wouldn't hurt as much as if they put a gun to Lyme's head, and the President knows. The President knows everything.

"Good," Lyme says, and she doesn't relax; if anything she tenses even further, her spine a coil of fear and determination. "Now I'm going to get you some cider, and you're going to drink that cider and get very sleepy, and when you wake up we will not have had this conversation. I'm sorry, but we can't, all right?"

Claudius nods. The cider, when Lyme brings it, burns his throat as he gulps it down, and whatever she put in it curls loosely in his limbs and in his stomach, dragging him down into sleep.

_Gemstones have to come from somewhere_, he thinks right before it pulls him under, the thought a rebellious spark in his chest, and then it's gone.

* * *

_District One (Remembered)_

He must have had nightmares something fierce the night before, because Claudius floats all the way through to the ceremony in District One with very little memory of yesterday. Lyme gives him the speech she wrote, and it's filled with the usual things, all the proper phrases of respect for worthy adversaries and congratulations for a game well-played, letter-perfect and absolutely no surprises. Claudius delivers it without a hitch, and Lyme gives him a short nod to let him know he did well.

The crowd responds with polite applause, and they look at him with disappointment but no real rancour. Claudius has almost forgotten what that looks like, but then again, One and Two understand each other. They dislike each other for the same reasons - always allies, always enemies - and Claudius went against the rules and now he's here and their tributes aren't, but One understands how it goes. They're realistic, for all the fluff and glitter and posturing.

The girls from One, for instance, know exactly what they're promising when they dance onstage in sheer gowns and turn their bare, deceptively-muscled shoulders toward the camera with knowing smiles. They know what it means when they flirt and tease but never deliver - the outliers might fuck in the Arena because why not, if you're going to die at fifteen with another teenager's axe in your throat, what good is virginity now - and they can't like it, nobody would _like_ that, but it's the rules and sacrifices must be made.

The girls from One never fight quite as hard as the boys to survive. The Capitol commentators might joke about their staying power versus the proud, stern girls from Two and talk about inferior product, but all the Careers know why, the Twos even before they Graduate. Claudius shudders and lets the thought pass because the drugs in his system tell him these are not nice things and he's not allowed to think things that aren't nice, not today.

The citizens of One, at least the ones privileged enough to attend the ceremony, know exactly how the rivalry both ties the two districts together and rip them apart, keeping them locked in an embrace while they tear at each other's throats. They wish Claudius were dead, of course, that Amethyst or Batal were the ones on stage now, pumping their fists in the air while the crowd shouted itself hoarse, but that's nothing personal. It would be the same for whoever stood on the stage in their tributes' place.

Claudius is the one who broke the rules and made the Ones into monsters, signing their death warrants. Claudius' sword is the one that gored Batal through the stomach, rupturing his internal organs and giving him ten seconds of unimaginable agony before the cannon fired because Claudius was too blinded with pain to make a clean strike. But Batal is the one who slashed Nikita's throat and broke the sacred alliance, and Claudius will carry the injury from Batal's sword-thrust in his shoulder for the rest of his life, so as far as Career districts go, they're square. Percy from Four killed Amethyst on the final day - he carved out her windpipe with his poisoned claws - before Claudius ran him through, and that's just another score settled.

It's a morbid kind of bookkeeping, where the tallies are marked in blood on paper made from human skin, but it's what works for them and Claudius doesn't give it much consideration beyond that. He can't.

But then, the Victors.

"You're one ugly son of a bitch, aren't you," says Gloss at dinner, and there's a hint of the same edge that was in Odair's voice but it's darker and deeper, and at least this time Claudius knows where it stems from. Gloss and his sister, the back-to-back Victors just before Finnick Odair, are a flawless matched set - in more ways than one. The whispers might not go beyond Two to the rest of Panem, but they definitely reached the Centre.

_("Do you see that?" the trainer in charge of the Games-watch asked when Gloss won himself a beautiful new sword. "How did he get his sponsors? Was he smart? Was he ruthless? What did he use?"_

_Claudius, thirteen and fresh into Residential, raised his hand. "He's pretty."_

_"That's right," the trainer said with a nod. "He's used the promise of his looks to borrow the sponsors' sympathy. But what's the rule of sponsorship?"_

_"What you borrow, you have to return," Claudius said, and he didn't raise his hand this time._

_The trainer nodded again. "Exactly." He shook his head at the screen as Gloss stripped off his shirt in a slow, sinuous motion and dove into the shining lake. "He'll be paying that back in the end."_

_At the Victory Tour that year, Gloss had a haunted, bruised look around his eyes, and he jerked away once on camera when someone touched him unexpectedly. The trainer clucked his tongue. "There, you see," he said, resigned. "That's never going to be any of you, but it's still a good lesson to remember. Be careful how you make yourself memorable. Make sure it's how you want to be remembered.")_

Claudius remembers. "Thanks," he says, helpless, and in a different situation he'd roll his eyes or make a joke except it's not funny and he can't dismiss it.

Gloss' jaw clenches, and he flips the dinner knife in his hand, staring at his own reflection in the shining blade. It's just them, the One Victors and Lyme and Claudius, the escorts and politicians all having left because One has its privileges in response to the extra sacrifice it makes, and Victors not being bothered by civilians on their own turf is one of them. A wave of frustration and pain that no Career would ever allow in public leeches out into Gloss' posture and expression.

"It's a fucking waste," Gloss explodes, out of nowhere.

Lyme's mouth tightens, and Claudius' medication is wearing off, leaving him wooly-headed and spoiling for a fight. "Excuse me?" he says instead, pressing his hands flat against the tabletop so he's not tempted to go for the silverware.

Gloss glares over the top of Claudius' head and doesn't make eye contact. "You're safe anyway, you Twos," he says, and Claudius' stomach twinges like the days when he can't keep anything down but has to take his meds anyway. Gloss curls his hands into fists. "He's safe anyway," he repeats, mulish, to no one in particular. "So why does _he_ get to be ugly?"

"Gloss, don't," Cashmere says in a low voice, sharp and venomous, and she reaches out toward her brother but doesn't touch him because he shies away. "Not in front of _him_." She gives Claudius a hard look, and she rubs the fingers of her left hand over her right wrist in a reflexive gesture. Claudius follows it and sees the telltale shimmer of healing synth-skin in a ring just below the triquetral bone. His insides plummet, and he doesn't need to check the other wrist to know he'll find a match. Cashmere catches him looking and snatches her hands back, setting them on her lap beneath the shelter of the tabletop.

In the haze of parties following his Victory, Claudius recalls one drunk Capitolian regaling everyone with how he traded his entire college fund for one night with the famous siblings, and never once regretted it. He was just going to go for Gloss, he'd slurred - leaning in close to his buddy while Claudius, fresh and drugged and crazy, tried not to imagine driving a knife into his eye - but they offered him the sister at half-price if he went for the set. _Worth every penny_, he'd said, and then he'd noticed Claudius staring. _Not you, though, no offence,_ he'd said, and laughed himself sick.

_He's sixteen_, Lyme had said about Finnick Odair, spitting the words like rotten meat. _He's fucking _sixteen_, and Snow only knows when it started._

A keening sound escapes Claudius before he can stop it, and he claps both hands over his mouth. In a second, Lyme is on her feet. "I think it's time to go," Lyme says, and she puts a hand on Claudius' shoulder and hauls him up when his legs don't obey.

Cashmere and Gloss ignore them as they leave, but one of the older Victors - the only woman left besides Cashmere - follows them to the door. "They're young," she says to Lyme, and her tone is tired and she's not apologizing for them, not excusing them, just explaining. Maybe whatever it is about Lyme that always drew Claudius to her and made him want to whisper all his hidden fears works on other mentors, too. "It's still early. They'll adjust."

Lyme sucks in a hissing breath, and Claudius imagines, just for a second before his brain slams down, what it must be like for that to be someone's life. When _adjusting_ means no longer getting angry over being sold to the current bidder again and again and again. When memories collide - of training and fighting and slaughtering other children just to wind up in bed with a wealthy stranger, to be able to find every weak point in the client's body and know they could kill him or her in a matter of seconds but not having the permission, the power, to do it - and the feeling left over is resignation instead of fury. When the privilege of one who never will be right in front of their faces no longer results in anything but exhaustion.

He thinks of his tiny cottage, nestled safe in the mountains behind the fence, of the fireplace and the quilt and the oatmeal and the piano, and this time the guilt skewers him even more firmly than Four and his poisoned talons.

Lyme looks at him and bites back a curse. "I've got to -" she says, waving a hand, and she wraps an arm around his shoulders.

The other Victor - Precious, he remembers with an insane shriek of mental laughter - just nods and turns her back.

They distance from District One to the Capitol is short, less than two hours, and they fight the whole time. Shame and regret and fear and anger battle it out in his veins with the last of his medication, and Claudius doesn't cry this time but he does scream, and he smashes every pretty piece of paraphernalia within his reach. Lyme says nothing, just lets him throw a decanter across the car before aiming a punch at his throat, and it's not until the train rounds the final curve of mountains that they stop. Claudius is exhausted and sweating and his limbs shake, and none of it is any better.

"They wouldn't resent you any less if you were pretty," Lyme tells him, heaving him up and holding him steady. "You're a Two, end of story. What's done is done."

* * *

_The Capitol_

Just like last time, the Capitol is a haze of parties - exotic, unsatisfying food, uncomfortable clothing, flashy jewellery and too-close faces - of interviews and smiles and sleepless nights, of sparring with Lyme and swallowing medication like it's candy. It's a shifting swirl of colour and glitter with Lyme as his rock, his centre, and Claudius clings to her and doesn't drown.

Only two moments stick out in Claudius' memory with any clarity.

The first is yet another gala, and several Victors have come in from the various districts, but only the ones with polish. There's no Haymitch Abernathy vomiting into a potted plant; no Johanna Mason sharpening her fingernails into points with a serrated knife she pulled from her unevenly chopped hair. Some of the Twos have come out for solidarity; Brutus talks shop with several older sponsors, his drink untouched in one hand as he makes slashing motions with the other, and across the room Enobaria tips back her head, the rainbows thrown from the crystal chandelier glinting off her fangs, and laughs. Most of the Ones are there, though Cashmere and Gloss only make an appearance before heading out with a guest on their arm, and Claudius squeezes his eyes shut and doesn't doesn't _doesn't_ think about it.

Finnick Odair is there, too, resplendent in pants that hug the lean curve of his hips and a soft silk shirt that hangs open at the collar and occasionally slips down past the curve of bone below his throat. He works the crowd like a professional - he _is_ a professional - and he talks to men and women both, leaving light touches at their waists, a press of fingers at the elbow join, and he laughs and winks and tilts his head so his copper hair catches the light.

Now that the thought's been planted, Claudius can't stop watching. Odair ignores him, flitting from guest to guest, until a statuesque woman with curls piled on top of her head catches him by the arm. "You shouldn't stray too far now," she says in a honeyed voice, but his skin dents beneath the pressure of her fingers.

Finnick laughs, and he raises himself up on his toes to kiss her cheek. "I'm just making sure everyone's good and jealous of you tonight," he says with a throaty chuckle that _has_ to be practiced. No sixteen-year-old boy laughs like that because he wants to. He threads her arm through his and saunters away, but not before he catches Claudius staring. "I'm way out of your league," Odair says dryly, and the woman tosses a nasty chuckle in Claudius' direction before the two of them slip away together.

The rest of the party blurs after that. Claudius thinks maybe he spends the wee hours of the morning throwing up, but he didn't drink anything. He does remember Lyme's fingers, cool and firm at the back of his neck.

The second memory is much shorter, but infinitely more important to Claudius. The faces come and go in front of Claudius in a sea of colour, and he smiles and chats and possibly babbles like an infant but they don't seem to care, until the cloying scent of roses and the copper tang of blood flood his brain and jolt him upright.

"Mr. President," says Claudius with a respectful nod, and forces himself to stand at attention despite the exhaustion pressing him down and the fear trying to set him to fleeing.

President Snow looks down his nose and purses his thin lips. "Who are you?" he asks, then makes a dismissive gesture. "Never mind."

Claudius manages to stay on his feet until the President sweeps out of the room, then he slides down the wall and collapses into a heap, hidden behind the banquet table. Lyme finds him within minutes and crouches down next to him. "D, you okay?"

Claudius nods, and he twists his fingers in his hair and pulls until the pain ripples across his scalp. He needs to know this is real, that he's here, that this just happened, and he starts to laugh - gasping, wracking laughter that leaves him bent over double on the floor, hands splayed against the hardwood for balance. "He asked me who I was," Claudius says finally, and Lyme's intake of breath slices through the air. "And then he walked away. That means we did it, right? We did what he wanted."

Lyme grips his neck tightly enough that he wonders if she notices what she's doing. He doesn't care. He wants to laugh and cry and fling himself off the roof just to have the force field throw him back and make him fly. What he does is take another breath, slow and deliberate, while he waits for Lyme's answer. "It's never over," she reminds him. "But I think for now he might be bored of you, and that's the best we can hope for."

It makes sense. Claudius' head isn't exactly in the game, but he thinks that the Capitol guests seem more excited about the other Victors at tonight's event than him; they talk to him, ask him about his time in The Village, coo over the film he shot of snow falling on the trees in the mountains, but as soon as someone shinier walks by, off they go. Most of the districts hate him, most of the victors want nothing to do with him, and he's not pretty or special enough to hold the Capitol's attention.

"So what does that mean?" he asks.

Lyme bites her lip. "It means we go home."

* * *

_District Two_

There are two parties back home. The first is the formal Victory Party, where the guest list is determined by district-wide lottery regardless of status, and the hall is packed with quarry miners, teachers, social climbers, stonemasons, factory workers, doctors, blacksmiths - people of every social group mingle in only mild discomfort, because the food is plentiful and the alcohol free-flowing. Claudius moves through the crowd, and for once nobody calls him a monster, no one rears back in horror at the nasty glint in his eye. The rich schmooze and titter, the working class slap him on the back until he swears he has bruises, and it's all raw and honest and Claudius could cry because everywhere he turns he sees his people. His home.

There's a second party too, later, without the cameras, without the music and the lights and the banquet tables, and the only requirement to get in is a swirl of black ink around one wrist. Instead of a public building, the Victors gather in the main room of one of their own, furniture pushed back against the wall to make room. They talk and sprawl and Claudius sits on the couch in a daze, his head on Lyme's shoulder, and they don't have to hold back or exaggerate or anything because no one cares.

"You did good, kid," says Brutus at one point, shoving Claudius' feet aside so he can drop down next to him, his fingers curled lazily around the neck of his beer. "That was one hell of a Tour, but you made it."

Claudius has shifted, stretched out on the couch with his head on Lyme's leg as she talks to her first Victor who's perched next to her on the arm of the sofa. He pulls his legs back against the cushions to give Brutus more room, but Brutus just pats his knee in a perfunctory fashion, which Claudius supposes passes for friendliness from him. "I'm just glad to be home."

Brutus nods. He spends more time out of Two and in the Capitol than any of the other Victors, always working, the dirt and blood of the Arena never far away, but tonight he's relaxed in the presence of his friends. No one outside these walls will ever see this, and that's a strange sort of comfort. "Now you get to lay low for a while," Brutus says. He speaks with the gruff accent and sloppy grammar of the quarries, only slightly gentrified by his years moving through high society. Claudius wonders if he keeps it on purpose, if he drops _ain't_ and double negatives as a kind of district pride. Or maybe it's all part of his image. Layers and layers, all the Victors, and if Claudius is ever going to be a mentor he'll need to learn to do this to, but not yet.

He dozes, waking occasionally when one Victor or another stops by to talk to him. It takes a while, but eventually nearly all of them manage to tell him, in some way or another, that he's forgiven, that he's welcome. Even Enobaria pauses on her way past the couch, and she raises an eyebrow at him. "Show up at my house again and I'll stick you," she says, and Claudius is about to protest when she continues. "But if I see you at the gym, maybe I'll beat the shit out of you properly."

In the end it's only Nero left, and Claudius watches him through half-lidded eyes, his cheek mashed against Lyme's jeans. It's not very mature, lying like this, and not appropriate for a child-murderer either, but all around him are murderers arguing about sports scores or throwing crumpled balls of paper into a can across the room or drinking together in companionable silence. Lyme's talking with the female Victor from the 51st about her two boys, who apparently have taken to building forts at the top of the stairs that stretch all the way to the bottom. Claudius has lost his hold on how murderers 'should' act, and he's happier for it.

Claudius lets his eyes close again, and he only stirs when Lyme stiffens, her arm across his back going taut. "Hey," says a voice in a deep rumble, and he's only spoken to Nero a handful of times but Claudius still recognizes him. He keeps his eyes closed and evens out his breathing. "You're trapped, so I thought I'd bring you some of your snobby-ass bourbon, or whatever the hell this is. I just looked for the most pretentious label, since some of us can't just drink a good, honest beer."

"It's called taste," Lyme says, and Claudius hears the clink of ice against glass. "Just because you drink cheap shit doesn't mean all of us have to."

"Yeah, yeah." He says it the same way Lyme does; Claudius wonders if she got it from him. The couch creaks under his weight. Nero lets out a breath. "I've missed you, little girl."

"Yeah." Lyme lets out a breath. "Look, I'm not sorry. I mean, I am - I wish it could've been - well, you know. Just, I don't like it, but I'd do it again."

"That's because I raised my girl right," Nero says, and he's still choosing his words carefully, his tone not completely natural, but the affection there is real even if it's still awkward. "We'll be okay," he says, and from the sounds of it he claps her on the shoulder. "You too, Mr. Don't-Think-I-Don't-Know-You-Aren't-Asleep," Nero adds, and he pokes Claudius hard in the bicep. Lyme laughs and flicks him behind the ear.

"That was a lot of negatives," Claudius mumbles into Lyme's knee. His heart thumps in his chest. "I don't think that sentence counts."

Nero snorts, then a hand much bigger and heavier than Lyme's falls on Claudius' head, tousling his hair. "It's okay, kiddo," he says, and that's when all the moisture in Claudius' body tries to escape through his face in a sudden tidal wave of tears and mucus.

Claudius lets out a wet sniffle that turns into a choked-off laugh. "Oh, I am so gross," he says, and his arm is asleep and full of needles at his side but he heaves it out and drags a hand over his face. "Fuck. I'm sorry, I got snot all over your jeans. I'll wash those."

"You will not," Lyme snorts, and she rubs her thumb behind his ear.

"Shove over, girly," Nero says, and Lyme scoots over so Nero can squeeze in beside her, his arm draped across the back of the couch behind her shoulders. Claudius curls up his legs and shifts position, and Lyme tangles her fingers in his hair again.

It's a stupid thought, and Claudius wouldn't have it if he weren't swimming in an ocean of exhaustion, relief, and serious medication that he's no doubt going to have some serious withdrawal from in the coming weeks, but he can't help it. Tonight he's going to be screaming and sobbing and begging Lyme to drug him until he can't remember his name, but right now - right now, Claudius is home, safe, with the only family he'll ever need.

He falls asleep to the sound of Nero and Lyme bickering about booze, and wakes up in his bed with no idea how he got there or who carried him. That morning it snows; big, fat, fluffy flakes that blanket the ground in pure, dazzling white, and Claudius the child-murderer, Claudius the traitor, the trained killer, Claudius with seven teenagers and three adults on his personal butcher's bill - Claudius tugs on his coat, runs outside, and builds a snowman.

"Needs a hat," Lyme says from behind him when he's done, and drops one on his head.

Over the next few weeks, as Claudius tapers down off his medication and shudders his way through withdrawal, every time he begs her for another dose to keep the madness out, Lyme drags him outside and they build another. By March, Claudius has stopped shaking, the nightmares are fading, he has piano lessons three times a week outside the Village, and his yard is packed with snowmen.

"That's gonna look horrifying when spring hits and they all melt," Nero says one afternoon, and Claudius laughs.


	11. Chapter 10: The Spark

Notes:

This is a heavy remix of azelmaroark's Five Times District Two Volunteering Went Wrong, borrowed with her full consent & enthusiasm, reworked to fit in with the timeline of this fic. In the original the relevant year was the 65th, but it's been moved to the 69th here because reasons.

* * *

**Chapter 10: A victor who did not so much fall, as saunter vaguely downwards**

"Does time really heal everything?" Claudius asked Lyme once, just after the 68th Games finished. He'd thought too hard about this year's Victor, a girl from District One, about the fate that lay ahead of her that he'd escaped.

"Nothing heals everything," Lyme said, rubbing his back as he hunched over and coughed up the last dregs of bile. She had a glass of water waiting for him on the counter. "But you'd be surprised."

Two years after his own Reaping, Claudius stands next to Lyme in the Victors' Box in the main square. The streets below mill with frightened teenagers, their parents standing behind the perimeter in a tense, silent ring. The Careers stand together in clumps throughout by year, the Seniors a tall, beautiful line with their perfect hair and beautiful faces and tailored clothes. They all hold their left hands over their right wrists, covering the bracelets, so no one who knows what the different beads mean can guess this year's Volunteer by scoping out which among them has the coveted gold.

Two years ago, Claudius stood down there, nervous and eager and excited all at once. He'd almost spoken up before the original name was called out, the years of pressure and anticipation pouring out of him, and when the escort's hand dipped into the bowl and closed around the paper his whole brain had sparked with need. Fortunately he'd had too many months of media training to make that mistake, and instead waited exactly the proper length of time, enough for the crowd to part and the boy he saved to take one staggering step forward before calling out. Never go too soon, the trainers told them; the Reaped should always feel that moment of fear. Just because your volunteering is a given doesn't mean they should take it for granted.

He'd been so willing then, stepping up to the chopping block and putting his neck on it, and Claudius doesn't regret it for a second. Not the years of training, the childhood he never had, the first kill when most boys his age would be stealing their first kisses, not even the trauma and the horror and the months and months of night terrors and self-hatred. He doesn't regret any of it because he got what he wanted in the end, a home and a family and people who accept him, and he paid the ultimate price for it and that means no one can never say he hasn't earned it.

That doesn't mean he can look out at the crowd of teens, trying to spot the pair who are lining up to die, and not feel a twinge of fear and regret for them. They think they know what they'll be facing, just like Claudius did, but they don't know. They have no idea. And it's lucky they don't - that he didn't, that none of them do - because if they did, it would be hard as hell to look that in the face and keep walking forward.

Claudius has had two years to work through his trauma, and while he'll never be able to hear someone sneaking up behind him without reaching for a weapon, he's better off than the outliers. Two years marks the end of the standard new-Victor cushion in his district. After this, Claudius will be expected to begin mentor training, if he's ready, and even if he isn't, Lyme will be eligible to start putting her name back in for a new tribute. Ideally, anyway. Victors have held onto their mentors for longer, after difficult years, and nobody's been pushing Claudius. He will probably get another year out of it, just because his Games were particularly rough and Lyme's career won't suffer if she lies low for another season, but still.

And then, of course, is that other thing, the thing that Claudius and Lyme haven't talked about since that night during his final week in the Capitol following his win. The part where President Snow signed a death warrant for Lyme's next tribute, whoever that might be. Claudius has no way of knowing if that was a serious threat, because the President might be omnipotent but he is also capricious, and one of the reasons it's best to follow every rule to the letter is that it's impossible to tell which ones he'll enforce this time round.

Lyme will have told the other mentors, or Nero will, and they won't be eager to fling her back in there with an even larger target than usual on her tribute's back. It doesn't make that much of a difference, mathematically speaking, but it's the same reason that almost no one ever jumps off the platforms, no matter how scared they are. Even a one in a million chance isn't no chance, and the Career odds of twenty percent make it just enough of a possibility for kids like Claudius to fight to be chosen every year. For even that slim margin of hope to be snatched away and replaced with a death sentence, well.

Maybe Snow will forget, but it's never a good idea to bet on that, just like they can't afford to send in tributes who can't swim even though almost no Arenas force anyone into the water. No one's needed to bother swimming yet, not in any survival capacity, but all the Twos who go in can at least keep themselves afloat for as long as it will take them to reach the shore. The unofficial motto of the Centre is _just in case_, and the mentors won't risk putting Lyme back in too early.

Claudius tries not to be glad about it, but he was always selfish and greedy and too eager to take anything that might even slightly be considered his, and he can't help rejoicing that Lyme will, in all likelihood, be his for another year. In a perfect world they'd tell her to retire and he'll be able to keep her to himself forever, but Claudius doesn't let him think too much about that possibility, and even when he does it's steeped with guilt. Not even Claudius can be that self-centred without repercussion.

He's been out two years and doing much better now, no nightmares since last spring when the previous year's Victor turned up in the news, dead in an alleyway, pumped full of drugs and murdered by one of the men the Capitol sold her to, and that's hardly his fault. He'll be allowed to watch the Games this year, with Lyme's supervision, and the other districts might mock Twos for being banned from watching the first year out like they're children, but no one's ever seen a morphling or alcoholic Victor in Two, so that speaks for itself.

Claudius is about as recovered as he's ever going to get, but he doesn't think he'll ever enjoy a Reaping again. He asked Lyme if that's okay, and she gave him the kind of look she does when he says something borderline traitorous and told him no, of course he wouldn't, but that's the kind of statement that should stay safe inside the Village walls. Brutus is the most immersed in the Games of any of the Two Victors, but even he doesn't wake up on Reaping Day and leap out of bed, eager to start the morning. It's just that he, like everyone else, knows how to play the game.

_It's never over_, Lyme told him that day in the hospital, with the tubes in his skin and a soft red comforter blocking out the blinding white on his bed. Claudius remembers very little of his recovery now, most of the first six months a haze of medication, sleep, and sparring, but he remembers that.

The square shifts, restless and nervous as always, and a small group of kids near the stage whispers and giggles amongst themselves. Twelve-year-olds, just eligible and eager to see the show. Claudius was excited his first year too, even if he knew his turn was six years away, but at least he'd known how to conduct himself with the proper gravitas. He would roll his eyes, but the cameras are always on the Victors - their image stays in the corner of the giant screens, serving as live reaction to whatever happens - and instead he shoots daggers at them with his mind. Kids these days have no respect, though at least none of their wrists glint with telltale beads, so they're just stupid civilians. If Claudius thought some of his classmates in the Centre were weak-minded idiots, civilians belong in a zoo.

Lyme moves her foot, pressing down on Claudius' toes, and he drags his eyes away from the kids. He's gotten out of practice of keeping his face Career-blank in the last year or so, which means he was likely glaring with the full force of his terrifying face. Oops. He turns his attention back to the stage and shifts his arm, brushing her forearm with his elbow in apology.

The film is the same this year as it is every year, though they've touched up some of the effects. This year, just as it did the year before, Claudius has to blank it out, and that's not what he's supposed to do but it's better than what would happen if he didn't, which is the part where his mind fills in the video with alternate footage that paints the Capitol in a a light they would likely want switched off.

Claudius is a non-standard Victor not just because of his looks or the manner in which he won, but because, for whatever reason, he's never been as good at believing that the Capitol is good. All-powerful, yes, infallible, maybe - easy to be when you can just change the rules - but just, no, and good, never. Claudius had thought that this was standard, that the other Victors kept these thoughts to themselves, but it turns out that most of them don't even let themselves get that far. Brutus honestly believes that things are the way they are because it's for the best - any doubts he has buried so deep it would take more than an irregular year to throw him - and he's not the only one.

Lyme isn't like that, though. They haven't talked about it in so many words, but Claudius knows his mentor, and he's learned to read her silences as well as he has her speeches. She thinks that Two, that the Centre and the trainers and the mentors all do the best they can to save as many as they can, and she won't reproach her district or the people in it. Whether she thinks the Games themselves are necessary is something they've never dared to talk about, possibly because they both know the answer.

Claudius respects Brutus, but would never work as his Victor. Not for the first time, he's glad that the Centre matches them as well as they do.

The film finishes, and Claudius lets out a breath. Lyme covers his foot with hers again, but this time she doesn't press down in admonishment, just leaves it there as a reminder that she's here, that he's not alone.

The escort flips a coin to see who will go first, the boys or the girls; it's all an act, an attempt to give District Two some modicum of randomness since everything else is so foreordained. They used to alternate every other year but that was deemed too boring, and so now they get to watch the coiffed clown toss a special Capitol dollar - a replica, outlandishly sized, because he'd probably drop a normal one with those fingernails - and slap it against the back of his sparkled hand.

"Ladies first this year," he calls out jovially, and the square ripples. Claudius lets his gaze flick out at the line of Seniors, silent and commanding and watchful, and he knows he shouldn't but he still tries to pick out which ones will be the ones to die. They're always dressed the best, prepped to make the finest show, and Claudius still remembers the pull of the comb through his hair, fingers gripping his skin, as they fought to make him presentable before the Capitol stylists made him ridiculous.

He finds the girl easily enough, dark-skinned like Nikita - his chest tightens - but with her hair in long, flowing curls instead of braided tightly to her scalp. They'll be avoiding allusions to the 67th for some time, no doubt, and Claudius discards all the leaner or plainer boys immediately as they're too similar to him.

The girl's name is Kat or Kate or something like that, if Claudius remembers correctly; she was wicked and brilliant and absolute murder with knives in training, good enough that even Claudius noticed and he was two years above her. He's not surprised it will be her. As for the boys - and Claudius shouldn't do this, he shouldn't connect them to their lives, to their years of sparring and training together, to the whispered conversations after hours and favourite foods or colours - it's likely going to be Caulder. Caulder was startlingly pretty given the size of his muscles, and even at sixteen he handled a sword like an extension of himself. He's dressed for it, at least, and Claudius tears his gaze away from them before his mind starts down the treacherous path of which one he thinks will come back.

It is Kate, and she mounts the stage with coolness and confidence in a green dress that matches her eyes, and silver fingernails that catch the light like tiny knives. Claudius swallows, his mouth dry. If Kate wins, they won't be friends; she never liked him even in training, thought he was too strange, too much of an exception. Kate is a Brutus or Nero kind of tribute, not one for Lyme, and sure enough it's Nero up on the stage behind the escort, so that settles that.

The escort admires her hair and her dress, Kate smiles without crossing the line into overly-feminine like the Ones, and then it's time for the boys. Claudius glances back at the line again and confirms it's Caulder because while the others tense in anticipation, he's the only one who doesn't. On the contrary, he's holding himself so still in an attempt not to look conspicuous that it ends up backfiring. Likely he's biting down on his tongue just like Claudius, to stop himself from volunteering too soon.

Claudius jumps when the voice tears itself through the square before their escort even finishes calling out the boy's name. He's not the only one; Lyme stiffens, and a bitten-off curse makes its way up from one of the rows below him. Brutus, ahead to his right, looks murderous.

The words are right - "I volunteer!" - but the voice isn't. It's not the deep baritone of an eighteen-year-old with arms the size of a twelve-year-old's head. It's not the command, the assurance, of someone who's trained for the past eleven years to be here, who's had every doubt and fear beaten back, forged in the fires of the Centre and tempered with preparation until nothing but clarity remains.

It's the voice of a child, quavering and terrified, and the cameras swing through the crowd until it's dizzying to look at the screens. Except that Claudius doesn't need the cameras because he knows where to look: the group of kids at the front, just before the stage, where one of the boys who'd been talking and shoving each other stands with his hand clamped over his mouth. His friends stare at him in varying attitudes of shock - one in horror, another in twisted, startled triumph - and Claudius can't breathe.

No civilian has ever volunteered in District Two. None ever should. There have been irregular volunteers before - one Career girl who made the mistake of falling for the chosen Volunteer that year and couldn't let her die; one boy who'd been dropped to second in the final months and couldn't let it pass - and Claudius, in his early teen years, had vowed that if they cut him he would be on that stage whether they wanted him to or not, but all of them at least had some training.

It must have been a dare. Claudius looks at the girl, the one with the vicious, gleeful expression on her face, the one who's so stupid that she just signed her friend's death warrant and hasn't clued in yet, and he wishes she could be the one on that stage.

All those twelve-year-olds in the 67th, standing on stage with no one willing to take their place. This one, if he'd been Reaped, would have a perfectly willing replacement, but now Caulder will never get that chance. Claudius was right about him, too, because while the other Seniors stand frozen in shock, Caulder boils with fury.

The boy's friends step back. He still has his hands over his mouth. "I didn't mean it!" he screeches through his fingers. "I didn't - it was a dare! She made me!" He thrusts his finger at the girl, who's not looking so smug now. "I didn't mean it! I was kidding!"

"They can't do that," Claudius says under his breath. "They - he wasn't serious!"

Lyme says nothing, but her mouth tightens into a thin line, her jaw tense, and Claudius knows better than that. He knows better to think that there's nothing _they_ can't or wouldn't do. They send twelve-year-olds to their deaths every year all across Panem - they sent eighteen of them two years ago - and this will make for some very interesting television indeed.

The Peacekeepers drag the boy up the stairs, still screaming. At the back of the square, Caulder's friends wrap their arms around him and haul him back as he tries to hurl himself through the crowd toward the stage. One of the trainers ducks under the rope - the Peacekeepers don't bother to stop him - and he gets Caulder in a headlock, talking low into his ear. Caulder twists, fights against the grip before sagging against the trainer's side, fists in his shirt, and his shoulders shake with what can only be furious sobs. Claudius tears his eyes away.

"Aren't you a brave one!" says the escort to the sobbing, snot-covered piece of meat. "What's your name?"

"Puh-puh-puh-Prosper," the boy whimpers, and of course. He's from one of those well-off families that plays off the prestige of having a Career Volunteer somewhere in the family but without the courage to send their kids themselves. They all have names like that.

"Well, Prosper, it looks like you're in for an exciting time!"

They shake hands - Kate digs her fingers into the back of Prosper's hand, silver nails drawing bright red blood - and she traps him when he tries to pull back. She leans forward, says something that the microphones don't catch but the cameras do: _You're dead, little boy._

They disappear into the Justice Building, and the cameras disperse. They'll be pulling Victors aside for commentary later, but not yet - Two privilege means they get a few hours of reprieve while the mentors gather all the data they can - and Claudius grips Lyme's arm as the Victors rush to get out of the booth and away from the public, to discuss how they can fix this train wreck. It's too soon after Claudius for this to happen again; they have to fix it, and fast.

"Home," Lyme says to Claudius. "Now. Before they remember you exist."

As the previous winner from Two and the last in an unconventional year, the reporters will be looking for his opinion along with that of the other seasoned mentors. Claudius doesn't argue as Lyme gets her fingers around his arm, digging in tight, and he lets her drag him through the streets and away from the square. The sun beats down on his shoulders, hot against the fabric of his Reaping Day suit, and he stumbles on a loose paving stone.

"Lyme," calls out someone from behind them, and Lyme stiffens. She actually takes one step further, and maybe it's not just Claudius she wanted to get out of the square, because dread turns her features into a grim mask. "Lyme," says the voice again, warning, and they both turn to see the head of the Program standing in the street. "Lyme, I'm going to need you to come with us. Claudius, you go on home."

Lyme nods, and she lets go of Claudius' arm. "Go home," she tells him, and her eyes are hard and commanding and he couldn't disobey her when she looks at him like that if he were on fire and she told him not to jump in a lake. "I'll send someone after you."

Claudius goes home. His throat is dry and scratchy, but when he pours himself a glass of water he can't even think about drinking it without his stomach turning, so he dumps it back out into the sink and digs his fingers into his hair. They can't think this was Lyme's fault, can they? She's been out of the public eye, out of the Games, since Claudius won. They can't possibly think she had something to do with this.

He's jittery and terrified and he wants his mentor, but he can't take medication without Lyme's say-so and if Lyme were here he wouldn't need the medication. Claudius flings open the door to the music room, sits down at the piano and pounds out one of the most violent concertos he's learned, crashing discords and chromatic melodies that grate in the listener's ear. The composer, he read in his book, went insane soon after writing it.

Claudius can now lift a sword without his mind flashing back to sticking it through Four's skull, but he prefers the piano anyway. He plays the way he used to train, single-minded and blind to everything else, and he doesn't hear he door until the person on the other side has to pound on it. Claudius stops, runs a hand through his sweat-dampened hair, and uses the few seconds it takes him to cross his small house to steel himself.

It's Brutus, jaw clenched and arms folded across his chest. "They've picked Lyme to mentor the kid," he says, not wasting a syllable. "She asked me to stay with you."

"Who?" Claudius demands, gripping his hands together to stop them from shaking. "Who picked Lyme?"

"People who ain't your business," Brutus says, not that Claudius expected otherwise, and if she sent Brutus to tell him and not one of the softer Victors then that means this is serious. "Now you're gonna stay in your house and pretend you don't exist for the next couple weeks until she gets back and this blows over."

The other reason to send Brutus is that while nobody made it to the Village without deserving to be there, Brutus is also the most physically intimidating on looks alone. Claudius spends approximately half a second imagining trying to get past him and back to the centre square before tossing that idea. Brutus could pick him up by the back of the neck one-handed and throw him across the room without thinking, and Claudius knows because he's seen him do it.

Brutus disappears from the doorway and comes back a minute later with a glass of water and two white pills in his palm. "She also told me to make sure you take these."

Claudius stares at the sedatives, and they're not the ones that will knock him under for days, so at least she trusts him that much. He wets his lips, but this ain't Brutus' first Reaping, as he always says when one of the younger Victors tries to pull one over on him, and he stands in the door with his arms crossed. Claudius isn't going to get away with swiping them into his pocket or sticking these in his cheek until Brutus turns his back. He sighs and takes the medicine, and drinks down the whole glass when Brutus raises an eyebrow at him. They're all so well-trained, the Twos. If Brutus told him to sit and roll over he'd probably do that, too.

"Couch," Brutus says, jerking his thumb behind him. "You're not sitting on that bench when those hit."

Claudius stands up and follows him, collapsing onto the sofa and curling his legs up to his chest, He presses his forehead against his knees, and if Lyme were here she'd put a hand on the back of his neck, maybe run her fingers through his hair, but Brutus isn't Claudius' mentor and he's not cuddly even if he were. Brutus gets the ones who are squirrelly about touch, who prefer to bond through silence.

Still, even temporary mentors are better than even the best civilian. Brutus nudges Claudius' leg with his foot. "Talk," he says. "Tell me what you're thinking."

He doesn't have Claudius' trust the same way, but the reflex stays. Whatever Claudius says will go back to Lyme anyhow; it's easier if he thinks of Brutus like a telephone with a really long delay. "This is because of me." Brutus says nothing, and Claudius hunches his shoulders. "Not - the kid volunteering, I'm not insane. I don't think it's a huge conspiracy or anything. I'm not stupid. But giving him to Lyme. That's because of me."

"Couldn't tell you," Brutus says.

And of course he can't, Brutus and speculation go about as well together as Brutus and pink girly drinks with little umbrellas in them like the Capitol loves. Claudius shrugs. "They wouldn't have given him to her otherwise. She's the soft mentor. It doesn't make sense. If they know he's going to die, why bother giving him the one who'll be nice? He's a traitor."

The word feels wrong in Claudius' mouth. He was almost a traitor - and if he'd caused Nikita's death in the Arena and hadn't come home a Victor himself then who knows, maybe he still would be - and while he knows that Volunteering out of turn is forbidden in Two, it still doesn't seem right. Traitors are like the boy way back, just after the first Quarter Quell, who got cold feet and refused to speak up, letting the original Reaped boy go to his death. But this is just a dumb kid dared into making a stupid decision that will cost him everything.

"They're doing him a favour," Brutus says shortly. "Lyme ain't gonna coddle him, she knows the rules same as anybody, but she'll at least wipe his nose. You know what I'd do if he were mine? Tell him he shoulda thought of that before he raised his damn hand."

When it had been Claudius' turn, he'd told himself that even if he died in two weeks, at least he'd have Lyme until he did. It might be small consolation for the kid who's going to be torn apart in the first few seconds, but maybe it will be something. Claudius looks up at Brutus, who keeps his face neutral, but for him anything better than a scowl says volumes.

"Yeah," Brutus says. "So don't go rolling in the mud just yet. I know it's tempting, but not everything revolves around you."

Claudius glares at him, but while Brutus' overall expression remains severe, the corner of his mouth twitches. He's been played; the burst of irritation is better than the well of despair threatening to drag him down, and Claudius grunts, giving points where they're due.

He stares at the blank grey screen of the television, thinking back to the Reaping, to Kate's nasty smirk and Prosper's wide-eyed terror. "Kate has to be the one to kill him, doesn't she," Claudius says, ice forming in his chest. "Two has to prove that the rest of us know the rules."

Brutus says nothing, but again, that's good enough. Claudius lets out a long breath, and it's selfish and terrible but he's glad, so painfully glad, that that wasn't him, that his year he might have had to kill a bunch of twelve-year-olds but none of them were from his own district, none of them were examples. Kate, just like Claudius, has been made executioner before the Games even start, and all because of circumstances entirely outside her own control.

Claudius curls in on himself again. That's two years that Lyme has been given a tribute not meant to live, meant to die as an example to the others, but this time she can't stop it. This time, instead of bending the rules and fighting every instinct she knows to bring him out, her job will be to make sure her tribute dies. It's a gross perversion of everything the Games stand for, the honour and glory and sacrifice. It makes it into nothing but a bloodbath in the truest sense, and she shouldn't have to bear that.

If Brutus had been Claudius' mentor, Claudius wouldn't be alive. It's not a stain on Brutus - or Nero, or any of the others who wouldn't have managed to pull off what Lyme did - just a testament that Lyme is different, that her heart can rule just as strongly as her head and her arms. She was willing to make that sacrifice, take any hit, so that he could live. Any other mentor would have fought hard, but within the boundaries they all held true, and there would've been nothing shameful about that. Likely it would've been Nikita or the boy from Four who won, and in the case of the former, Nero would be safe this year. It would've been Brutus on stage with the girl tasked with the job of slaughtering the little traitor.

If Kate wins, she'll be brought back to the Village a hero, and they'll all rush to reassure her that she doesn't deserve the label of Two-killer, kin-slayer, because the boy she killed wasn't worthy of his place. Just like Nikita would have been if she'd murdered Claudius in the bloodbath and come home with the crown.

"Hey!" Brutus' voice hits him as hard as a physical blow, and Claudius flinches back. "Stop. Whatever you're thinking, knock it off. Knock it off double if you're playing the what-if game, because you know what, kid, there's no end with that."

Claudius knows that. He knows better, period; any Victor knows not to play with hypotheticals, because that's a road that leads to the bottom of a bottle and nowhere else. "Yes sir," he says, and Brutus nods.

"Brutus?" Claudius says, his fingers clutching tight to the edge of the blanket.

Paper crinkles as Brutus sets down whatever he's working on. The room is dark, save for the circle of light from the floor lamp Brutus has dragged next to Lyme's armchair. The tribute parade finished hours ago, but Claudius keeps crawling back awake. "Yeah?"

Claudius sucks in a ragged breath. "I don't think I can be a mentor." He steels himself for the disgust and disappointment; Brutus is the star of his generation, and nobody in Claudius' has even come close to touching him. Very likely no one ever will.

"You're fresh still," Brutus says instead, and Claudius blinks, surprised at the lack of condemnation in his tone. "Two years ain't nothing."

"You were in training by then. Lyme apprenticed that year - with you, even."

"Yeah, so? That don't mean shit." His highlighter squeaks across the paper as he draws a line. "Everybody's different, and me and Lyme played standard games, besides. We didn't have to figure out how to off a bunch of twelves and still come out smelling like roses."

Maybe Snow's roses, but Claudius takes his point. "Oh," he says.

"Yeah, 'oh'." He doesn't have to look at Brutus to know he rolled his eyes. "Look, and you know what, kid, it don't matter even if you never want to mentor. You won your Games and that's the only thing you'll ever have to do for the rest of your life. In case you haven't noticed, we ain't exactly hurting."

Claudius lets out a breath. He's never talked with Brutus this long about anything, much less something important, and without Lyme there as a buffer. It's a strange sort of comfort, lying with the blankets over his head while Brutus sits in the armchair, legs propped up on the footstool, with a mountain of paperwork in his lap. "Most people do."

"Since when does that mean anything? Enobaria doesn't mentor. Anyone who tried to give her shit for it would get a knife in the arm and she'd be right to do it, long as she wasn't mouthing off to somebody above her."

Claudius fingers the soft material of the blanket. It's blue fleece, like the rest of the house - blues, purples, greens and browns, no red since that last blanket in the hospital, nothing that might remind him of blood when he wakes in a panic - and he shouldn't doubt. Not Brutus, not Lyme, not any of Two. The Victor's Village is the best place in the world. And yet.

"It's just." Claudius swallows. "You've all done so much for me. It feels selfish not giving anything back." He hasn't talked about this with Lyme, not yet; he can't bear her disappointment, even if she'll love him regardless, but Brutus isn't his mentor and his disapproval of nearly everyone is legendary. There's no shame in Brutus thinking you're lazy because compared to Brutus, absolutely everyone is. Lyme gets a pass because she works as hard as he does, but he still thinks she's soft on her tributes so that knocks her down a notch. It must be exhausting living alone on that pedestal, but Brutus appears to manage.

"Just because you don't become a mentor don't mean you'd just sit on your ass all day," Brutus says. "Though, reminder, if you did that'd still be fine. You got yourself here, your job's done. Everything else is extra. You could train. You could work in the detox centre. You could get a job selling ice cream if you wanted, nobody would say a word."

"If it was only one tribute per district I could do it, I think," Claudius says. "But I couldn't - I can't go up against another mentor I don't think."

"Nobody said that's easy." Brutus says it calmly enough, but like any of them, he's been on the other side when a Two won, had to shake their hand and congratulate them for killing the tribute he did his best to save. He's also looked into the face of a friend who will be grieving for the next two months even as he rejoices. Claudius can't decide which would be worse. "Like I said, it's still early for you. You might change your mind. But nobody will blame you if you don't." The pages rustle again, and Claudius imagines Brutus giving him a look over the top of his folder, glaring at the lump of Claudius' shoulder under the blankets. "You ever start feeling like a waste of space, I'll be happy to give you something to do. There's always shit needs doing."

Claudius huffs a laugh, but he had to fight himself awake to have this conversation and the drugs are calling him back down. "You're kind of a hard-ass, you know that?"

"Cry me a fucking river, kid," Brutus snorts, and Claudius misses Lyme like he has a hole right through his middle, but this will hold him over for now.

He doesn't watch most of the commentary. This was an unusual Reaping and they love that, the pundits and the bookmakers and everyone who gets called in to give their opinions. Claudius can't watch most of it without getting upset.

They pull in a Victor from one of the outlying districts - Angus, District Ten, hammer, Claudius remembers after a second, he had that scrawled on the third finger of his right hand when studying for his test - for his thoughts on the controversy out in District Two. "I just think it's interesting," he says. "This kid did what they all do every year, same as the girl what's in it with him, and they call him a traitor. Just sayin', don't make much sense to me."

Claudius glances at Brutus, and the unimpressed set to his jaw and the way his fingers tap out a rhythm against his biceps tell him exactly what Brutus thinks about Angus' deductive reasoning, but he doesn't say anything.

There's no footage of Lyme this year, despite all the speculation about her apparent attraction to lost causes. "Do you think we'll be seeing any miracles this year?" Flickerman asks one of the analysts. "After all, we all remember what happened two years ago."

Yes, they do. Claudius remembers the stink of death and flowers stinging his nose and crawling down his throat until everything he ate for the next two days tasted of it. Remembers President Snow telling him nothing would come to Lyme as long as she didn't go out on a limb to save the next one like she had him.

_Her next tribute won't be so lucky_, Snow had said. Even the President had had no idea how right he'd been.

"That's enough," Brutus says, shutting off the television when Claudius' breath shortens. "Go practice the piano."

An hour later he tugs Claudius away from the piano and tosses him a squeeze ball for his cramping fingers. "Let's go climb rocks," Brutus says.

Last time Claudius went rock climbing, Lyme brought lunch and they raced each other to the top. He doesn't remember who won, but he remembers the apples she brought with them, the sweet cider he drank while dangling his feet over the edge of the cliff and looking out at the Village below him.

What will she even be doing now, when there's no point to gathering sponsors, no stats to read, no strategies to plan?

"Less thinking, more climbing," Brutus says, rapping Claudius on the head with his knuckles, and Claudius says "yessir" and goes to fetch the shoes Lyme bought him.

Prosper's interview is a mess. Lyme's given him something to keep him standing instead of curled in on himself and covered in his own vomit, and it makes him glassy-eyed and dazed. Caesar Flickerman asks him a bunch of questions, but he only ever gives one answer.

"I'm here because I broke the rules," Prosper says, dully, and he repeats it like a mantra, like it's been beaten into him. There's a good chance it has. The Remake Centre can wipe away bruises but not the way he hunches and shies away from touch. "I'm dying because I broke the rules."

_What do you like about the Capitol? What's your favourite food? Is there anything you'd like to bring back to District Two?_ None of it matters. By the end of the interview Prosper's laughing, a high, shrieking sound, and he tears at his hair and drags his nails down his cheeks until blood beads up on his pale skin, and the words bubble out of him like the spittle that runs down his chin.

_I'm here because I broke the rules. I'm dying because I broke the rules. I'm here because I'm dying because I broke the rules I broke the rules -_

Brutus clicks his tongue but says nothing. They usher Prosper off stage after the three excruciating minutes are up, and then it's Kate gliding on stage in a silver dress that shimmers like it's made of knives. She nails her interview perfectly - in the Centre the trainers will be pausing the feed and pointing at the screen, telling all the kids to watch because this is what they'll want to do - and Claudius would be impressed except for the thought working its way beneath his fingernails.

She's here because she followed the rules. And odds are, she'll be dying for the same reason.

Claudius sucks in a breath, sharp and startled. Brutus glances at him, eyes narrowed. "What?"

Claudius shakes his head. "It's just ... it's thrown the whole Games off," he says, and that's true enough. "Everything's off-balance."

"Well, that's why we have the rules," Brutus says, arms folded across his chest. He has titanium bones in his right hand because he smashed two fingers to powder when he followed the rules and caved the final tribute's skull in with his bare fists.

More than anything, Claudius needs Lyme to knock him down, sit on his chest and pin him until his brain rattles back into place, but she's not here. She's not here and he can't ask Brutus because it wouldn't work and is crossing a line besides, and so Claudius sits and the thought rolls around in his brain until the only thing he can do is ask Brutus for something to help him sleep. He dreams of blood and Prosper's face - or is it Kate's - and is relieved when the sunlight streams in through the window and wakes him.

"If you think I'm letting you watch that, you're out of your fucking mind," Brutus says that morning, when Claudius asks why the television is off when the Games are due to start. "We both know what's gonna happen. You don't need to see it."

"But -" Claudius doesn't actually want to watch it, but it's the same sick, twisting horror that keeps people goggling as kid after kid gets cut down on the screen, like watching a train go off the tracks.

Brutus raises his eyebrows, pulls out his phone, and punches a few buttons. He doesn't use it much - his hands are too big and all the devices too small - but he knows how to work it, and he holds it out toward Claudius with a 'try me' expression. "One saved message," says the phone through the tinny speaker, then it changes to Lyme's clipped 'I mean business' tone.

"Brutus, if that kid of mine even thinks about turning on that TV, you tell him I will personally turn him into oatmeal and feed him to himself," Lyme says, and she sounds harried and exhausted and Claudius aches with the need to see her, to know she's all right, but even her stressed and frazzled spreads a balm across his nerves. "Actually, you know what, let him listen to this. D, I am so not even kidding, do you hear me? You take one move toward that remote and I've authorized Brutus to smack you so hard you land in District Four. You said you wanted to see the ocean again, well, here's your chance." She pauses. "Brutus, cover your ears." Claudius glances at Brutus, who just snorts, then Lyme's voice is back. "Kid, I love you, all right, so just do this for me so I won't have to worry. I'll see you soon."

"Yes ma'am," Claudius says automatically, then flushes. At least he didn't echo the sentimental stuff, but the sight of Brutus' meaty hand holding the phone jarred him back before he embarrassed himself further.

"That's that," Brutus says, shoving the phone back into his pocket.

Claudius hunches down, picking at a loose thread on his jeans. "I should watch," he says, mutinously, but he's not fighting it and Brutus knows it.

"Look." Brutus gives him a hard stare. "Lemme tell you how it's gonna go down. The counter will hit zero. Kate's gonna pull a weapon out of nowhere, a weapon they just 'happened' to miss during the final checks because some things are more important. She's gonna off that kid before he even steps off the platform, say something to the cameras about how it feels to kill a traitor, and that's it. All right?"

"Yessir," Claudius says. Brutus says 'good' and tells him they're going to take a walk instead.

(Later, it turns out Brutus got it right, almost down to the letter. When Claudius asks him, he just shrugs and says he's seen too much to be surprised by something like this now.)

Lyme shows up at Claudius' house that night. "Hey, D," she says, and he jumps, hits a serious discord on the piano, but Lyme doesn't even move. He looks at her, sweeping his gaze over her face, her posture, soaking in everything about her - the set of her shoulders, the edge at her jaw, the shadows under her eyes. She's exhausted, and it's not the kind that can be cured with sleep.

"Is it done?" Claudius asks, his hands frozen on the keys.

"It's done."

She's still his mentor, strong and capable and worlds ahead of him, but just like the time he sneaked in through the door and saw her hunched over the table after his victory, there's an aura around her now. A weight pressing on her shoulders and deadening her eyes, and Claudius swallows. "What happened?"

"I got a medal." Lyme gives him a thin smile, her jaw taut. "Official apology from the President for wasting my talents."

Claudius sucks in a breath, thinking of the President's threat. "Does that mean you're off the hook? Does - I didn't think he counted."

"He was my tribute," Lyme says. "He died. I'm not going to get cocky, but by the books, that counts." She runs her fingers through her hair. "That's one of the reasons they gave him to me, D. If my next tribute had an axe hanging over his head, may as well make it the one doomed to die in the first thirty seconds anyway."

It doesn't mean anything; Claudius knows that better than anyone. Lyme could still walk into the Games Complex with her next tribute, whenever that is, only for the Gamemakers to kill him messily and painfully anyway, as a reminder that there are no easy outs with the Capitol, no light ways to repay debts. Still, it's the hope that it might be over that will keep her going, and Claudius clings to that.

"So business as usual then," Claudius says. Next time Lyme will take the same odds she always does - probable death, with the faint hope of miraculous survival - and, very likely, come back with nothing but her tribute's Centre bracelet and the clothes they were wearing on Reaping Day. Every Victor a mentor manages to save could always be the last one until they're not; now it's Claudius who sits on that line. He can only hope that if he is the last, he'll be enough.

"Business as usual," Lyme says. She slaps the door frame with her hand. "C'mon, you, Brutus says you didn't chew on the furniture or anything, so let's have some sparring."

For the first time, Claudius wonders which one of them it's supposed to help feel better. But then Lyme throws her arm around his shoulders and pulls him close against her side, drops a kiss on his hair, and maybe it doesn't matter either way.

Kate makes it to the Final Six like a good Two should, but in the end she's as dead as the rest and some cocky engineering genius from Three takes home the crown.

They watch the closing ceremony together at Claudius' house, and Kate's face flashes up onto the screen during the parade of the fallen just the same as Prosper's. In the end it doesn't matter that hers is at the end while his was the first; the only difference is that Nero took Kate's things back to the Centre while Lyme made a trip into the lower town to find Prosper's family. She didn't have to - as a traitor there was no need for his remains to make it back at all - but she did anyway. It's not his family's fault he spoke out of turn, and they'll be paying for it with stigma for years to come. May as well have the body to bury, for all the comfort it gives them.

"People talk about Career privilege," Claudius says, his chin resting on his knees. "But every year, at least five out of six Careers end up dead."

"D, don't," Lyme says, too weary to put any authority behind it, but her defeat stops him the same as any command.

"Sorry," he says automatically.

"Don't be sorry." Lyme rubs a thumb across her brow ridge. "Just ... don't."

After a minute of silence, Claudius reaches over and holds out his hand. Lyme sighs and grips his fingers until they ache.

It's the week after the Victor will have returned to his district. The midsummer air sits thick and heavy, pressing on Claudius' chest like a soaked comforter, like Four's corpse slowly going cold on top of him. "You said once," he says slowly, and the Capitol could be listening, they could be everywhere, but he thinks that if they were in the Village someone would know. Besides, no one ever won the Games without stepping off the platform. "You said one day I'd ask you to let me do something, and you'd tell me no."

"Yeah, I did." Lyme's eyes are wide and wary in the dark, and she knows. She knows Claudius as well as he knows himself, better, because she's seen into his soul without the twisted mirror of his own thoughts to strangle her and mar the view. "For the record, I meant suicide. Self-harm. I asked Nero to let me stick a knife into my arm. I wanted to cut the tattoo out so I wouldn't have to look at it. That's what I was talking about."

"I know." She'd probably pegged him for suicide, given his tendencies before the Arena. And he'd come close - for all he knew he'd already asked, somewhere in the soul-sucking pit of his Victory Tour, when every fear and doubt got their claws in and tore at his skin. Claudius swallows. "But that's not what I'm asking now."

"Claudius, drop it," Lyme says, her voice hard, but it's not the same. It's brittle authority, all surface with nothing underneath. It's fear of consequence instead of strength of conviction.

Claudius licks his lips, bites down hard enough to taste blood, then wets them again. "It's wrong," he whispers, and he waits a full five seconds for lightning to strike him, for the ground to open up beneath him, for a horde of tracker jackers to burst in through the cracks in the window and sting him to death. Nothing happens, and this, this is more frightening than standing on the platform and watching the counter tick down. He closes his hands into fists. "It's _wrong_. The Games are wrong."

"_Drop it_."

He can't. Now that he's started, the words tumble out of him. "The Capitol is wrong." His pulse beats in every part of him, his blood like fire in his veins. "The President is wrong."

"I said drop it!" The back of Lyme's hand catches him across the mouth. In their two years of knowing each other she's knocked him down, held him with an arm in his throat and a knee in his stomach while he screamed and clawed at her, thrown him into the wall and kept him there with her fingers twisted in his hair, but she's never hit him, not like this, not like his mother used to when he was too small to hit back.

The shock of it nearly stops him but it's not enough. Instead it just starts him laughing, wild and hysterical, like Haymitch Abernathy when that rock bounced off the force field and nearly hit him in the face. Blood trickles its way down the corner of Claudius' mouth - Lyme clutches her fingers to her chest, her knuckles red and wet - and he just laughs, grips his hair and rocks back and forth. "It's wrong," he hisses. "All of it is wrong. Break the rules and you die. Follow the rules and you die. It doesn't matter. None of it matters."

Lyme sucks in a breath, and she lowers her hands. "Prosper said -" she stops, digs her nails into her palms. "In the Justice Building, the day of the Reaping. He said -" her voice drops as though they could hear her even now. "'Kate followed the rules and she's going to die, so what does it matter?'"

And die she did. Kate played everything perfectly and she still ended up in a hovercraft's claws, hauled away to the morgue, her corpse returning to the Centre with the cardboard box of her last personal effects. In the end she was just as dead as Prosper. As dead as the twenty-two others that went in with them, did everything they were meant to do, and got carried out in pieces.

"You can't do this forever," Claudius says, and Lyme winces. "Prosper's not worse because he was an untrained kid. It's just that he wasn't broken in like the rest of us. He said the thing we all know but don't let ourselves think."

"For good reason." Lyme gathers strength for that one, and Claudius is sick at the thought of going against his mentor, even for what's essentially just a thought exercise, but he has to. They have to. "This is suicide. You remember what I told you before? About your movies?"

"You said I'm not the only person to think these things," Claudius repeats, because he doesn't recall everything about his recovery but that stuck with him, like all the things Lyme told him to remember and his brain dutifully did. Such a good little soldier. "You said it's just that everyone who thinks them for too long ends up dead. But what if -" His breath comes quick in his chest. He's light-headed, and Lyme hasn't hit him again and that means she's listening. "What if they just get smart?"

"The smart thing is to shut this down right now," Lyme says, her words nearly a snarl. "The smart thing would be for me to beat the shit out of you right now so you learn."

"Not that kind of smart." Claudius' fingers twitch. Nervous energy floods him and he wants to run, fling knives in every direction, play all the sonatas he knows until his hands fall off. "What if they just learn to wait?"

"Claudius -"

He shakes his head. "One day, it will be too much," he says, and he knows it's true. He knows it the way he knew as a kid that if he didn't make it through the Program he would walk out of the Centre building and straight into traffic. "They ask, we give, and they take, that's the way it goes. But they just keep asking and just keep taking, and one day they'll take something you didn't want to give. Something so bad it's worse than marching kids to their deaths every year." Claudius exhales, gathers his strength, and meets her in the eye, lets her see everything. "One day you're going to walk away. Take me with you."

Lyme stares at him in horrified silence. Claudius spreads his hands. "There," he says, his voice hoarse. "That's it. That's the thing you swore you'd tell me no."

The silence stretches out, seconds, then minutes, and ticking clocks have always given Claudius anxiety since the countdown in the Arena, so the only measure of the passage of time is the slide of the tree-shadows on the ceiling.

"Go to bed," Lyme says at last. "It's late."

Years later, Claudius wakes when Lyme throws a canvas rucksack at his head, jarring him out of sleep. Energy blitzes off her like a downed cable, and even in the dark the lines of her face, her stance, are tight with rage. Her hands shake. "Well?" she says, clipped and terrified and furious. "You coming?"

Claudius scrambles out of bed. "Thought you'd never ask."


End file.
